


another word for wanting

by eurydicees



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Dreamsharing, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Rejection, Self-Harm, Sokka (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, except like. the soulmate thing, kind of. tagging just to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25124284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydicees/pseuds/eurydicees
Summary: Sokka begins to dream of his soulmate when he's eleven years old, and it just gets harder from there. Or, 125 moments soulmates share, and none of them come easy.(In which your dreams are your soulmate's memories, and Sokka dreams of an all-consuming fire, growing and eating at his soulmate until it burns up the connection between their souls. In which they find love anyways.)
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), background Kataang - Relationship, brief mentions of mai/zuko - Relationship, brief mentions of sokka/suki, brief mentions of sokka/yue
Comments: 353
Kudos: 1846
Collections: AtLA <25k fics to read, Best of Avatar: The Last Airbender





	1. pipe dreams

**Author's Note:**

> a few clarifications: 
> 
> 1) the self harm tag-- there are scenes of unintentional self-harm on the wrists bordering on graphic, implied self-harm, and a non-graphic description of burning on the wrists
> 
> 2) the homophobia tag-- there is a lot of internalized homophobia in here, and there is a scene where a character is ridiculed for being gay 
> 
> 3) formatting-- this work is a series of vignettes rather than full chapters, each section ranging from a sentence to a page. there are 125 total "scenes" and 6 "books" of these!
> 
> happy reading!

I. 

The first dream is of a tree. The branches are waving just slightly in the wind, and Sokka can feel the breeze brush over his skin. The only sounds are the birds, chirping somewhere in the distance. The tree stands in a courtyard, at the edge of a little pond. Ripples run out in circles, as if something had just been dropped in the water. Sokka can hear someone laugh, and he smiles. He doesn’t recognize it, but he knows the laugh is from someone he loves. Or, that his soulmate loves. 

It’s a soulmate dream, he’s sure of it. His father had told him about them, years ago. The spirits send them when you’re ready-- though there’s no way to predict when that will be, if ever-- to show you memories from your soulmate’s life. You see the world from your soulmate’s eyes, get to walk through their life in their body. 

Sokka wonders what his soulmate is dreaming about right now. Something beautiful, he hopes. Ice blocks drifting through the water, the way the sun glints off of the snow. Something to match this tree, leaves swaying gentle in the air, the smell of cherries drifting through the wind. A laugh, a smile. 

II. 

Sokka wakes up at the crack of dawn when he’s eleven years old with a dragon on his left forearm. It’s wrapped around a sword, the hilt a little ways below his elbow crease and the tip at his wrist. It’s inked in a dark black with thick lines, and if Sokka squints his eyes, he thinks he can see the dragon moving. 

“It’s your soulmark,” Hakoda tells him, a troubled look on his face. “A mark that you had your first soul dream and you’re ready for more.” 

Sokka runs his fingers over the mark, gently touching the ridges and valleys between the lines. It’s bigger than the one his father has, and Sokka is incredibly proud of it. 

Hakoda tells him that it means he’ll have a great love, one as big as his heart. He doesn’t say anything more, and Sokka doesn’t ask. He just beams when his father ruffles his hair and asks if he wants to go fishing, and the day goes on. 

III. 

Katara has always been Sokka’s best friend, even if she’s his baby sister. There have never been many people his age around the tribe, so he and Katara mostly played together on their own. She doesn’t have a mark yet, though she’s getting older every day. 

Even if she never says the words out loud, Sokka knows she’s jealous. It’s in the way her eyes linger on Sokka’s forearm, in the way she rolls her eyes whenever anyone mentions soulmates and Sokka preens in the way he does. He tries not to, but with every dream, he falls a little more in love with his soulmate. 

IV. 

He dreams of a young girl, maybe four or five years old, running across a stone walkway. Her hair is tied up in a tight bun, but a few strands fall loose as she runs. Sokka can’t see them, but he knows his soulmate is chasing after her. She’s laughing, and Sokka gets this bubbly feeling of happiness, rising in his chest. This is a precious memory, he thinks. Something close to his soulmate’s heart, secreted away where no one can steal it.

When he wakes up, Sokka stares at the ceiling of the tent for a while. The sun had risen hours ago and his family had already left, so he’s alone with his thoughts. No one’s there to see him, but he bites back his smile anyways. The spirits choose the memories you’re supposed to see, and Sokka is lucky to have this one. It’s sweet and joyous and young, and Sokka treasures it just the same as his soulmate does. 

V. 

He only gets glimpses of solid information. Every now and then he’ll hear someone call out a name and his soulmate will look up, but the word is always just out of reach-- he can swear he heard it, swear he recognized it, but he still doesn’t know it when he wakes. He almost gets his soulmate’s mother’s name, once. He hears it in the dream, loud and clear, but he forgets it as soon as he wakes up. 

In that dream, he’s sitting by the pond with his soulmate’s mother. They’re feeding bread to the turtle ducks, his soulmate’s hands thin and pale as they reach the place water and earth meet. There’s the bubbly feeling of happiness that doesn’t quite fit in Sokka’s chest, as if all of this comfort is too big for one memory. 

It stops, though, suddenly. His soulmate’s heart drops, the last crumb of bread falling into the pond. The mother looks up, a strand of hair masking her face as she turns to the side. Someone calls her name, tells her that her husband is looking for her. Sokka hears her name, repeats it to himself, trying to hold on to it. 

She stands and smiles at his soulmate, saying, “You be good now,” and walking away. 

Sokka wakes, and forgets the name. 

VI. 

He dreams of fire. Not the roaring, hungry fire of the war Sokka knows is being fought somewhere, but the weak, trembling fire held between the fingers of his soulmate. 

His soulmate is sitting cross-legged on a grassy hill overlooking the city. It’s a beautiful sight; the sun is rising, pink and orange over the horizon, and the city is just beginning to wake up as Sokka watches. His soulmate has their hands cupped in his lap, as if they’re trying to collect the sunlight in their palms. 

Sokka hears someone just out of view say something he doesn’t catch, but it makes his soulmate switch positions, pointing his hands out, thumb facing the sky, palms pressed together. There’s the sound of deep breaths. 

After a few moments, Sokka watches a weak flame flicker at the tips of his soulmate’s fingers. Despite himself, Sokka wakes up grinning. However much he hates fire, he can feel the sweat and aching need pressed tight in his soulmate’s chest, and the final burst of pride when the flame appeared. His soulmate had worked so hard for this. 

VII. 

Sokka tells Katara his soulmate is a firebender, and she can’t look him in the eye the rest of the day. Firebenders killed their mother, and his soulmate is one of them. Someone from the Fire Nation. Sokka takes one look at Katara-- who looks so like their mother-- and feels sick. 

His stomach turns over, still half reeling from that pride that filled his soulmate’s heart when the burst of flame appeared. His soulmate had worked so hard for the moment, Sokka knows it, but that moment was just the start of what a firebender could do. He loves his soulmate, but when he thinks about fire, all he can think about is death. 

Sokka doesn’t want to believe that his soulmate could grow up and be like the people who killed his mother, who burnt half the village. How could he share his soul with someone like that? 

The spirits are crueler than he thought they were, he finally decides. After Katara, he doesn’t tell anyone else about that particular dream. The fire is something he keeps close to his heart, pressed deep under his skin where no one else can see it. He used to wear his dragon soul mark with pride, but he stops talking so much about it now that he has confirmation about what it means. 

VIII. 

There are more people in the next few dreams. It doesn’t seem like his soulmate has many friends, though, because it seems that these girls are just people they come across when their sister is with them. They’re all younger than his soulmate must be, and they giggle when his soulmate walks by. 

Sokka can feel something burn in his chest when his soulmate walks by the girls, and he’s not sure if it's him or his soulmate who feels that burning. 

When he first feels it, Sokka is sure that it’s the kind of embarrassment a kid gets when they trip as they walk by another group of kids. Nothing serious, but it must be important to his soulmate, so Sokka holds onto it just as hard as the other memories. 

The second time he sees the group of girls, they’re laughing as his soulmate walks by-- one of the girls waves and Sokka can see his soulmate’s hand wave back. Still firebender’s hands-- long fingers and pale skin and sharp knuckles. His soulmate puts their hand down and keeps walking, and Sokka feels that burning again. 

The girls are laughing behind them, and his soulmate clenches their fists and tries very, very hard to… to something. Sokka can’t quite tell what-- hide something? Say something? Feel something? Stop feeling something? 

_Tell me,_ Sokka wants to beg. _Show me. I’m your soulmate. You can trust me._

IX. 

He closes his eyes while he’s tucked between the warm bodies of his father and his sister, falling asleep to the sound of their breathing.

In this dream, he sees his soulmate’s sister again. She’s a firebender too-- and Sokka chokes down that sick feeling in his throat because this is his soulmate and he will love this person with all his heart, no matter where they’re from, just like his mother taught him to-- and she’s a much better bender than his soulmate is. It’s something that she rubs in their face all of the time, a sharp grin as she tosses a ball of flame between her hands, watching as Sokka’s soulmate struggles to light a candle.

 _It’s not fair,_ Sokka wants to scream at her, _my soulmate is working so much harder than you._

He can’t say anything, not in the dream. He just has to watch while his soulmate struggles. Even in the dream, Sokka can feel the pain and jealousy building up in his soulmate like the pressure rising in a kettle. Fire is a dangerous thing, Sokka knows, and it sometimes feels like the weak flame in his soulmate’s hands is going to explode and burn the whole memory away. 

His soulmate’s sister is laughing at his soulmate, and the thickness of shame coats their throat, and Sokka can feel tears prickling at their eyes. Sokka wants to hold his soulmate close, he wants to wrap his arm around them and kidnap them and bring them back to the South Pole and hide them away, but he can’t. He just watches as the burning creeps from their lungs to the flame in their hands. 

X. 

His soulmate’s sister, Sokka decides, is not a good sister. She’s nothing like Katara, as far as Sokka can tell. As much as Katara fights with him, and soaks him in ice cold water when she’s angry, and laughs at him when he falls, Katara’s never made him feel like _this._

His soulmate is sitting in the corner of their bedroom, holding their knees close to their chest, and Sokka can hear ragged sobs coming through their throat. Their sister, though half as tall, seems to tower over them, and his soulmate can barely look her in the eye. 

She kneels down, sighing softly. 

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” she croons. “It’s _illegal._ Don’t you know that?” 

His soulmate nods, and a pain runs through Sokka’s heart. He’s not quite sure what his soulmate did, but it feels like his heart is on fire, his whole body tingling, aching to burst, and their sister is gloating. 

“Just…” their sister pauses. Shrugs. Waves a hand. Smiles. “Pretend. Pretend to love her and maybe we can move on from your soulmate nonsense and no one ever has to find out about… this.” 

Sokka’s heart drops. 

Oh. 

XI. 

He wakes up early the next morning. The sun is barely through the window, and Sokka shivers despite the relative warmth in the tent. It makes sense, honestly, and Sokka’s not quite sure why he didn’t figure it out earlier. _Pretend to love her,_ his soulmate’s sister had said, and _it’s illegal,_ and _oh._ His soulmate was a boy. 

He lays still, listening to Katara's quiet, even breaths, and turns it over in his mind. The burning when his soulmate walked by the girls in the earlier dreams suddenly makes sense-- one of them clearly liked him, and he was trying so hard to like her back, but he couldn’t make himself do it. 

His soulmate must have figured the whole thing out long before Sokka did, and he briefly wonders what his soulmate saw that made him realize. It doesn’t matter very much, but Sokka makes a mental note to ask when they meet. 

It doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would have. This person is his soulmate, boy or not. Gender doesn’t matter so much as literally everything else does, and Sokka is perfectly happy with everything else about the boy-- though if he’s still keeping the firebending under his tongue and out of sight, that’s no one’s business but his own. 

But even if he doesn’t mind, it clearly matters to his soulmate, and Sokka has no idea how to fix that. 

XII. 

Sokka dreams of fire again. He dreams of his soulmate’s firebending training a lot, watching as his soulmate tried so hard to learn the basic katas while his sister quickly outpaced him. It came naturally to her in a way that it didn’t come to his soulmate, and Sokka was right there while his soulmate struggled. 

This fire is different though, Sokka knows that as soon as he falls asleep and into the dream. It’s his soulmate’s sister presenting her form to their grandfather, who stays just out of sight when his soulmate bows next to his mother. The sister spins on her foot and punches and her fire burns in strong, controlled bursts. The dream goes just long enough for his soulmate to fall when he tries to firebend before it switches. 

His soulmate is sitting in his bedroom. The only light in the room is the light that spills in from the hallway. His sister stands by the door, and she’s grinning. 

“Dad’s going to kill you,” she says, and Sokka bolts awake. 

XIII. 

Sokka shakes his father roughly, and he knows tears are dripping off his cheeks and onto the blanket Hakoda wrapped around himself, but he couldn’t care less, because someone had hurt his soulmate, he’s sure of it, and-- 

“Sokka?” Hakoda asks, rubbing at his eyes as he wakes up. “What’s wrong?” 

“Dad,” Sokka whispers, and that’s all he can get out before a sob tears at his throat and he collapses, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes to try and stop the tears. 

Hakoda swallows, sitting up and wrapping his arms around Sokka. “Hey,” he tries to say, voice still thick with sleep. “It’s okay. Sokka…” 

He pulls his son close, pressing a light kiss to the top of his head, and Sokka falls into his chest. They stay there the rest of the night, Sokka curls up while his father holds him tight, and they wait for the sun to rise together. 

XIV. 

Sokka makes it his mission to send his soulmate the happiest memories he has. He doesn’t know how the spirits choose which memories to send between soulmates, so he just decides to have only happy memories. Hakoda gently tells him that that’s not how life works, but Sokka refuses to admit that. 

He drags Katara on new “adventures” every day, walking as far away from the village as they dared to go before rushing back home, going penguin sledding down the steepest hills, having as many snowball fights as possible, training with his father and the other men, doing everything he could think of that might count as a happy and formative memory his soulmate might need. 

It’s strange, how much his life revolves around a boy he’s never met. He’s twelve years old, having had a soulmate for more than a year now, and he’s changed his entire life to try and make the other boy happy. He falls asleep at night thinking the happiest thoughts he can, trying to send his soulmate positive memories, trying to make the world seem as good as possible, just so that the boy won’t be so afraid anymore. He prays it works. 

XV. 

Sokka dreams of the tree and the pond again. A thick fog is rolling over the garden, with the turtle ducks nowhere to be seen. Sokka’s soulmate is alone, sitting cross legged at the edge of the pond. It’s quiet. Not even the birds are singing, and the usual ripples in the pond are gone. Sokka’s soulmate touches a finger to the water and shivers. 

Then he holds out his arms, resting them on his knees as if he’s about to start meditating. After a moment though, he rolls up his sleeves, revealing his bare skin. For the first time, Sokka gets to see his matching soul mark on the other boy’s arm-- it looks exactly the same as Sokka’s mark does, with the dragon winding around the sword, head and neck in an arc over the grip of the sword and teeth bared at the outside of his arm. 

Sokka’s soulmate runs a finger over it, much in the same way that Sokka finds himself absentmindedly doing whenever he’s alone, and Sokka watches as his soulmate cups his hand around his forearm. He seems to be waiting for something to happen, but Sokka can’t see his face, so he’s not sure. His soulmate squeezes his hand around the mark, and Sokka is again distracted by his hands, molded specifically for fire. 

Sokka wakes up as his soulmate looks over the pond, and the fog begins to roll back. 

XVI. 

He lays in bed for a few moments, eyes still closed, hanging onto the last wisps of his dream. It was the first dream in a while where Sokka couldn’t tell exactly what his soulmate was feeling-- he’s usually so intense about every emotion, unable to hide anything from Sokka. There’s a gnawing feeling that this memory is different, like maybe it’s more of a premonition than a memory, and Sokka can’t just dismiss it. 

Eventually, though, Katara shakes him awake, reminding him that he’s supposed to go on a hunting outing with some of the men today, and Sokka is forced to get up. He files the dream under his “things I don’t understand about my soulmate” list, and decides to come back to it later. 

XVII. 

Gran Gran is sitting by the fire and telling a story about her days as a young girl in the Northern Water Tribe when it happens. Sokka is so invested in her story that he doesn’t notice at first. It’s just a vague itch at his arm, and Gran Gran is talking about the time she pushed her father into the ocean, and one of those things is vastly more important than the other. 

Sokka scratches at his arm absentmindedly and continues listening, but the itch doesn’t go away. Braving the cold, he rolls up his coat sleeve without looking and scratches a little harder. But then the itching is turning to burning, and his nails must not be as sharp as he thought they were, because the itch isn’t going away, in fact it’s getting worse, until it’s a searing pain, and Sokka can’t ignore it, but he can’t say anything, and Hakoda is laughing at something, and the sound echoes like a drumbeat in Sokka’s head, and he can’t hear anything but this pounding, drumming, and the burning, burning, burning at his arm--

He doesn’t realize what he’s done until Katara stops him. The fire is flickering, the shadows dancing over his skin, and he can’t quite tell what he’s looking at until he squints his eyes and the pain sinks in. His fingers are bloody. He’s stripped the top layer of skin off of his forearm, and it’s crusted under his nails in the same way that dirt gets stuck there without him noticing for days. 

He was scratching over his soulmark, digging into his arm and peeling the black ink off-- or maybe it was burning itself off and Sokka just helped it along-- but either way the soulmark is _wrong._ The fire flickers again, and Sokka gives out an involuntary whimper. Katara takes his arm in her hand and brings it closer to the fire, and for all her jealousy over having a soulmate, she can’t help but cry out. 

“Dad,” someone says and Sokka’s not quite sure if it's him or Katara, but either way, the fire seems to be laughing at him and the dancing light is making his vision splinter into tears. 

The dragon and the sword that he had worn so proudly, the bold strokes of black ink had changed. His arm is still burning, and the skin there is raw, dripping thick ropes of child’s blood, and the inked dragon is a bright red. It looks like it’s been carved into his skin, like someone had cut into Sokka’s arm in the shape of his soul, leaving behind only traces of who he is. 

“Dad,” Sokka whispers, voice cracking. “I don’t know what I did. I don’t-- I don’t know what happened.” 

At some point, Hakoda had moved over to kneel in front of Sokka. He blocks the fire, casting everything in a dark shadow, but the bloody soulmark seems to glow like embers. Hakoda, refusing to look Sokka in the eye, takes hold of his arm. One hand wraps around Sokka’s whole wrist and he has never felt smaller in his entire life. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Hakoda says, and that’s all Sokka needs to hear for him to know that no, nothing is ever going to be okay again. 

XVIII. 

He dreams a dreamless sleep. 

XIX. 

He wakes, and Hakoda is there with him, watching with half shut eyes. Katara is cuddled next to him for warmth, her breathing steady. Sokka struggles to a sitting position, shifting Katara so that she’s lying on her own. 

“Dad?” he asks quietly.

Hakoda startles, suddenly alert now that he’s realized Sokka is awake. “Hey, son,” is all he can bring himself to say. “How are you feeling?” 

Sokka swallows, running his tongue over cracked lips. His mouth is completely dry, and he suddenly wonders how long he’s been asleep.

He was asleep, wasn’t he?

“I didn’t dream,” Sokka whispers, voice cracking. 

The words are all holed up in his throat, and there’s something awful there, at the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t know how to say it. He glances down at his arm, and where his soulmark should be, there are only tightly wrapped bandages, the kind Gran Gran saves for extreme injuries. It’s dark, but Sokka can still see blood dotted in places it seeped through the fabric. 

Hakoda nods, and Sokka realizes for the first time just how old his father is, and how tired. Hakoda takes a deep, calculated breath. “Yeah.” 

“I-- ” Sokka stopped. He couldn’t take his eyes away from his arm. “I don’t understand what happened.” 

Hakoda takes another deep breath, and Sokka feels like screaming. His arm is burning again and he wants to see his mark, but he knows that there’s something so deeply wrong with it that he might fall apart if he looks. 

“This-- the bleeding and the black ink turning to red-- is what happens when-- ” Hakoda cut himself off, staring at Sokka, this twelve year old soulmate who just woke up from a dreamless sleep. 

“What, Dad?” 

Hakoda closes his eyes, not able to face his son while saying the words. “It’s what happens when your soulmate rejects you.” 

XX. 

Sokka is okay. He is, really. 

Hakoda takes care of him. Changes the bandages because Sokka doesn’t even want to look at his arm. Brings him food and water when everyone else is eating by the fire pit. Makes sure he’s warm when the rest of the tribe all lay down for the night. 

Sokka doesn’t sleep. He can’t. His eyes are constantly half shut, and he never quite feels awake, but he can’t bring himself to lay down. He knows he won’t dream, and after having dreams for so long, the thought horrifies him. 

Dreams are for soulmates, he knows. He’s been taught that his whole life. You don’t dream until the spirits decide you’re ready for your soulmate’s memories, and you don’t dream once your soulmate dies and has no more memories to give. When your soulmate-- Sokka still can’t think the words to himself, can’t say them out loud-- breaks your connection, the dreams stop. 

And that’s what his soulmate did. Break the connection. 

Sokka is okay. He is, really. 

XXI. 

When his arm fully heals, Sokka spends a long time just staring at it. The mark is still there, but what was once a sword and dragon with strong inked strokes is now a weaker design made up of thin red lines, more like scars than they are like ink. He runs his fingers over it, trying to find the places it used to dip and rise, but the lines are so thin now that they’re barely noticeable.

Hakoda tells him that when he was a child, his own father had worn what he called “a signature Water Tribe look.” Sokka looks at the gloves and arm wraps Hakoda offers him and very decisively does not cry. He takes them wordlessly, and Hakoda shows him how to put them on. 

The others in the village must know what happened. Secrets like these don’t stay secrets. When Sokka starts functioning again, he ignores the strange glances and pretends that no one is whispering about it. He’s not sure if he’s grateful that no one asks about it or if he’s angry that no one will say what they’re all thinking to his face. 

He doesn’t know what he did wrong. He must have done something in one of the memories his soulmate dreamed. Maybe in a past life he did something unspeakable to deserve this. Maybe the spirits just never meant for him to have something this good.

Whatever the reason is, he doesn’t know it. He’ll never meet his soulmate now, Sokka figures, and he hates the Fire Nation just that much more. 

XXII. 

Two months later, his father and the other men of the tribe leave. They go off to fight a war that Sokka knows they have to win. He wants to go with them, wants to give the people who killed his mother a piece of his mind, but Hakoda makes him stay. He watches the ships leave, slowly backing out of harbor and taking the tide with them. 

He meets Gran Gran and Katara and the other women and children of the tribe at the fire pit, and they all sit in silence. He’s surrounded by half of the village, but Sokka has never been more alone. 

XXIII. 

Life goes on, somehow. Sokka gets up every day, and he does his best to be the man of the tribe, but he’s barely thirteen and his voice is starting to crack and he’s scared all of the time. He and Katara go fishing and Gran Gran cooks and between the three of them, somehow, everyone gets fed. 

Eventually, Sokka teaches himself to hunt. It’s small things, at first, puffin seals and cuttlefish and the odd snow rat. He works himself up to bigger animals, barely managing an arctic hippo once. Katara said he must have just found it dead, but the blubber fed the village for almost a week so he didn’t really care what she thought. Though that wasn’t going to stop him from boasting about it for the rest of his life. 

Katara learns to cook whatever scraps Sokka can catch and hunt. Gran Gran tells them both everything she knows. Sokka teaches himself to fight with every weapon he has. They grow up too fast. 

XXIV. 

Sokka is breathing hard, barely stable on a slab of ice, the arctic ocean soaking through his furs, the canoe nowhere to be seen, and all he can think about is that the iceberg is glowing.

He’s lived in the South Pole his entire life, and he’s never seen a glowing iceberg, and he really never thought he would ever see one. There’s no precedent for this. 

“Hey,” Sokka says. “Katara?” 

Katara looks at him, her eyes as wide as his. She shrugs wordlessly, and creeps closer to the iceberg. Sokka half-heartedly reaches out a hand to stop her, but he knows nothing can stop Katara when she really wants something. 

“He’s alive,” Katara calls back at him, and there’s an exhilaration in her voice that Sokka’s never heard before. “We have to help!”


	2. shipwrecks

I. 

A lot of things happen in a very short span of time, and Sokka is a little bit out of his depth here. First, there’s the Avatar. Then, there’s the Fire Nation. A prince who knocks Sokka over with one hit and keeps walking. Then, there’s a flying bison. Which Sokka rides. With his sister. And the Avatar. 

All of this, he figures, he can probably live with, after a little while to adjust. He’s still trying to steady his heartbeat from the first moment he saw Aang and the glowing iceberg, but he can breathe. He lies back in Appa’s saddle, inhaling deeply, and looks back to Katara and Aang.

“...we go to the North Pole,” Katara was saying, “you can master waterbending!” 

“We can learn it together!” Aang tells her, and Sokka just knows he’s grinning even if he doesn’t look at the kid. He may be the Avatar and more than a century old, but as far as Sokka can tell, he’s got the naive cheeriness down better than any of the elements. 

Katara shoots him a glance, a half smile dancing at her lips. “And Sokka, I’m sure you’ll get to knock some firebender heads on the way.” 

“I’d like that,” Sokka says, before he can regret it. Without noticing he’s doing it, he rubs at his left forearm, smiling loosely at Katara. “I’d really like that.” 

II. 

They stop for the night somewhere that looks just like their home in the South Pole except without any of the people. The same arctic water brushes against the icy shore, and the ground is made of the same packed snow that Sokka is so used to. The moonlight glances off the ice and bounces back up, just barely lighting the small scene. 

Katara and Aang are both asleep, having left Sokka to keep watch, in case the Fire Nation Prince came back. He doesn’t really mind doing that for them. Sleeping hasn’t been his forte in a few years now. 

It’s not until Katara starts muttering in her sleep that Sokka realizes anything’s happening. She’s never been a restful sleeper, always shifting and turning over, and Sokka has learned to tune her out pretty well, but she says Aang’s name and Sokka freezes. 

She says it again, and turns to lay on her other side. Despite being wrapped tightly in her bedroll and despite the freezing cold, Katara shifts so that she can reach her left arm out, as if just that limb is too hot to be tucked against her body. Aang, facing her, reaches his own arm out. 

Sokka takes a deep breath and turns around. In the morning, they’ll have matching marks on their arms. They’ll be insufferably happy about it. Katara will try not to rub it in his face, but she’s always wanted a soulmate. They’ll dream of each other every night. They’ll smile when they see each other in the morning. They’ll be stupidly happy like soulmates were meant to be. 

Sokka smiles to himself, but it’s bitter and tired. In the morning, he’ll be happy for Katara, and happy for Aang. Right now, though, he’ll take deep breaths and try to find some constellations and feel just a little bit sorry for himself. 

III. 

Okay, yes, he’s a bit of an asshole when he first meets Suki, but the fact that he can admit that, Sokka tells himself, is the mark of being a good person. Suki does not seem impressed by this, but it’s hard to tell through the make up. 

He grins at her anyways. “I’m getting the hang of the whole thing.” 

“You absolutely are not,” she tells him seriously, but he swears she’s holding back a laugh. “Come on, try again.” 

He steadies his stance the way she showed him to-- if anyone asks, the dress is completely uncomfortable and inconvenient, but secretly he’s kind of enjoying the way it shifts with every movement-- and holds his fans tightly between his fingers. 

He’s about to ask if she’s ready, but she’s already stepped forward, spun around, and kicked his legs out from under him. He lands on the padded floor with a thump and groans, dropping his head to the ground. 

“Okay,” he admits, staring up at the ceiling, head spinning, “maybe I’m not getting the hang of the whole thing.” 

Suki laughs and something warm blooms in his stomach, but he pushes it away as she helps him stand up. 

“It’s a good effort, Sokka,” she tells him, and the way she says his name only makes the warm feeling spread to his lungs, catching his breath in his throat. “Try again.” 

IV. 

Sokka always knew that his sister was crazy, but it turns out that Aang is crazy too, and that’s why they’re meant for each other. This is something he realizes at some point between the burnt villages and being trapped in rapidly growing crystals and staging a jailbreak in a Fire Nation prison, and probably his time in the spirit world didn’t help. 

But now they’re chained to a column in a Fire Nation temple, and there’s no way of getting out of here. Who knew saving the world and restoring balance in nature would be so damn tiring? 

“How’s Aang gonna make it out of this?” Katara asks, glancing at Sokka. 

Sokka sighs, sagging against the chains binding him and Katara to the column. Apparently having a soulmate means you have absolutely no regard for your own life or the life of your brother. “How are _we_ gonna make it out of this?” 

“Prince Zuko,” one of the Fire Nation commanders says, breaking Sokka out of his thoughts. “It was a noble effort.” 

Sokka looks over at the Prince, who is scowling in a way that makes his face twist up in all the wrong places, and swallows down his fear. This is the enemy, and Sokka is no fool. Any weakness is a weapon against him. 

The Prince is terrifying, with the growl in his voice and the scar that covers half his face and the shock of pain that hits Sokka’s lungs every time he comes close, like he’s suffocating. The Prince is glaring at the guard, flames sparking at his fingertips. Sokka tears his eyes away from the Prince to look at the door, breathing hard. He’s burning with fear and anticipation and he swears the Prince is staring at him. 

V. 

Sokka’s lying down on a patch of grass with his arms behind his head and staring up at the sky. The clouds are moving slowly today, running from nothing and going nowhere. 

“I should probably tell you,” Katara says softly. She sits down next to Sokka, smoothing out her clothes and refusing to look at him. 

Sokka sighs and sits up, resting his arms on his knees. “I already know.” 

“You do?” Katara asks, frowning at him. “About me and…?” 

“You and Aang? Being soulmates?” Katara nods, and Sokka smiles at her. “Yeah, I already know.” 

Katara swallows, looking away again. The spot they found to make camp for the rest of the afternoon is on a small cliff overlooking the sea, and the waves crash gently over each other in the distance. Sokka wonders if it reminds Katara of home as much as it does him. 

“What do you think?” Katara asks softly. 

“I’m happy for you,” Sokka tells her, and it isn’t a lie. “Really.” 

Katara breaks into a smile, ducking her head. She nudges his shoulder and he grins, shoving back at her. They don’t need to say anything else. 

VI. 

He wants to find his father. There’s so much to tell him, about everything that’s happened, and Sokka figures there has to be a lot his father wants to say to him too. They’re so close. Sokka and Katara could just keep walking with Bato, and eventually they would see Hakoda again. 

But they don’t. They stop, and turn around. Aang needs them more. Sokka will see Hakoda again soon, he promises himself, when the ash has settled enough that Sokka can breathe. 

VII. 

Yue is sweet, and pretty, and she seems to actually like Sokka. They take walks and Sokka makes bad jokes, and Yue actually laughs. Sokka loves her laugh. He thinks maybe if that laugh was the last thing he heard, he wouldn’t mind that so much. 

She almost kisses him, while they’re on Appa and watching the city run below them. It would be his first kiss, and Sokka doesn’t think there’s anyone better to share it with. 

But then the snow turns to soot, falling black and heavy over the ice of the North Pole, and everything falls apart again. 

VIII. 

Prince Zuko takes Aang, dragging him to a cave and hiding out while the blizzard slowly freezes the world over. Even before Katara attacks, Zuko looks like he’s ready to collapse from the cold. The fire he throws isn’t nearly as strong as it usually is-- and Sokka’s not quite sure when he started cataloguing the strength of his fire, but he’s sure it’s part of some defense mechanism ingrained in a warrior’s mind-- and Katara takes Zuko out easily. 

Aang makes them save Zuko, and bring him back to the relative warmth of the city, out of the bite of the snow. Sokka wants to leave him there, he knows that’s what Zuko would do to him, but something in his lungs twists at the thought, even as he says differently. He’s Fire Nation and therefore evil, he reminds himself. But Zuko is barely breathing for all the shivering he’s doing, and Sokka knows they can’t leave him. 

IX. 

He loses Yue. 

For all the preparation he did with Arnook, for all the fighting the Northern Water Tribe had put in, for all the spirit journeys Aang went on, Sokka still loses her. They win the battle, driving off the Fire Nation’s forces, but Sokka kneels alone at the edge of the oasis, the wet grass soaking through his pants and the moonlight drying the tears on his cheeks. 

After the ash has soaked into the ice and disappeared, Sokka sits at a rooftop and stares up at the moon. 

He’s not quite sure if the moon is smiling down at them or not. He doesn’t know how much of the moon he watches is Yue and how much of it is just a rock spinning through the sky. Where do spirits go when they’re not touching you? Where do they go when you’ve lost everything and you’re not quite sure how to keep going? 

The spirits in charge of love, Sokka thinks, have never been kind to him. Sending him a soulmate who rejected the bond. Sending him Suki, who he had to leave behind in a burning village. Sending him Yue, who gave herself to the moon spirit and left this realm. Sending him a journey to take and no help with finishing it. 

There’s no point in dwelling on things that could have been.They’ll be leaving soon, heading south so Aang can learn earthbending. In the morning, Sokka will put a smile on and climb into Appa’s saddle and keep flying. Right now, though, he’ll take deep breaths and watch the moon and feel just a little bit more lonely than usual. 

X. 

Sokka doesn’t believe in soulmates anymore. It’s a stupid system. The idea that there was one perfect person out there in the world, meant just for you, didn’t seem plausible. He watches Aang and Katara, and the kind of silent conversations they can have in just one look, and something angry gnaws at him. He ignores it, telling himself that no, soulmates are stupid and he doesn’t need them. 

They get through the secret tunnel in the mountain without love. Sokka doesn’t need it. 

XI. 

He’s so tired. He wants to lay down and close his eyes and sleep without dreams and wake up refreshed. He wants food and water and he wants this loud, metal train that cuts through the earth like a bulldozer to stop following them. 

Sokka has very rarely gotten what he wants. 

XII. 

Toph’s comment hurts more than Sokka will ever say out loud. He’s the weak link of the group, he knows that, but she didn’t need to point it out. _Three on three plus Sokka._

He’s never been enough for anyone, but it still hurts every time he’s reminded of that. He doesn’t get much time to think about it, though, because the girls keep following them and they’re still running. 

It all comes to a head in a dusty town where nothing seems real. Sokka’s still reeling from whatever the girl in pink did to him, the muscles in his arms burning whenever he moves, but he keeps going. 

He lashes out with his machete at the girl with the lightning, and his arm wraps suddenly feel all too tight. Fire flashes before his eyes, bright blue flames cutting through the air, and the lightning has imprinted itself on the backs of Sokka’s eyelids. 

They all stand against her. Sokka and Katara and Aang and Toph and-- and the Prince and his uncle. A common enemy, Sokka thinks, and some traitorous part of him wants the two of them to join the group. They’re strong, and dedicated, and they need everyone they can get. When he really thinks about it, though, the town around them is burning and Sokka’s still afraid of fire. 

The Prince’s uncle gets hit with lightning and Sokka must black out for a moment, because there’s a shooting pain running up his bones, coming to a stop just below his skull, as if someone had ripped out his spine and taken his heart and lungs with it. For a moment, he can’t think of anything other than _hurt and fear and pain._

The Prince yells at them to go away, that rough grating of his voice echoing in Sokka’s ears, the only sound that’s able to cut through the burning just below his skin. They leave, and Sokka catches his breath again. 

XIII. 

They camp out for the night somewhere in a forest clearing, where they pretend no one will ever find them. Aang prods at the fire with a charred stick, his chin in his hands, not quite looking at any of them. 

“She’s his sister, I think,” Aang says, way too calm for what he’s saying. “The Princess of the Fire Nation coming after us. Me.” 

Sokka sighs, thinking back to the twisted way the girl had smiled. It’s similar, though less distorted by scarring, to the way the Prince glares. “I thought she looked familiar.” 

“We beat her today,” Katara says, but it doesn’t sound as confident as her assurances usually do. “We can do it again.” 

She and Aang look at each other, seeming to talk without words. Aang smiles at her, just a little bit. Sokka tears his eyes away from them and reminds himself that there are bigger problems in the world than soulmates. 

XIV. 

They’re at the other side of the Serpent’s Pass, and it’s the end of another day Sokka’s not quite sure how they survived. Suki finds him standing apart from the group, staring out at the wall of Ba Sing Se. It’s a sight to see, but more than that, it means they’re making progress. They’re getting closer to the city, and they’re getting closer to taking down the Fire Nation. Sokka has forgotten how to care about anything else. 

“Listen,” Suki starts, “I’m really sorry about last night. We were talking, and saying things, and I just got carried away, and before I knew it…”

The moon is shining down on them, and Sokka thinks maybe Yue is giving her approval. Suki is, after all, beautiful in the moonlight. So for just a moment, Sokka forgets about the war and the Fire Nation and soulmates and broken hearts. 

“You talk too much,” he says, grinning. 

Suki opens her mouth and starts to say something, but she stops, laughing slightly. “Just kiss me already.” 

XV. 

Ba Sing Se falls. Katara can barely hold Aang by herself, and she collapses somewhere in the city and cries. That’s how Sokka finds her when he, Toph, and Appa manage to locate the exit of the crystal catacombs. She’s cradling Aang’s head in her lap, sobs wracking her body. 

Sokka jumps off Appa and doesn’t think about it, just darts to Katara and holds her as if he doesn’t know how to let go. She folds herself between his arms, and he can feel her trembling as Toph manages to get Aang on Appa with a carefully placed column of rising rock. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Sokka whispers and she only shakes harder. 

XVI. 

Aang wakes up. Sokka always knew he would, but a dam breaks in his chest when he sees Aang wander onto the deck of the ship, releasing weeks’ worth of held breaths as he watched Katara run spirit water through the lighting scar at his back. He’s okay. They’re all okay. The three kids he considers his little siblings barely made it through the fall of Ba Sing Se, but now they’re on their way to the Fire Nation capital for the final invasion. It’s almost over, Sokka tells himself. 

XVII. 

He wakes up when Katara shakes him violently, his chest soaked in sweat and his muscles clenched. He’s breathing hard, the moonlight glinting in wide eyes, and the first thing he registers is that Katara is afraid. That snaps him out of some kind of delirium, though a drop of sweat falls from his hairline to his eyelid, and he tries to swallow whatever lingering pain is left in his joints. 

“You were screaming,” Katara says, and something catches in her voice as her face crumples. “You were screaming in your sleep.” 

Sokka takes a deep breath, but he can still feel his heart pounding in his ears. “I’m sorry I woke you up.” 

“Sokka,” Katara whispers. “Your arm.” 

His stomach drops. 

XVIII. 

In the dim light of the moon, Sokka looks down to his left forearm, where dried blood coats the place his soulmark should be. Gingerly, he runs a finger over the spot and bites back a scream. It’s hot to the touch, burning the tip of his finger like he had pressed his hand to a hot iron stove. Biting down hard on his lip, ignoring Katara’s pleading whispers, Sokka presses his palm to the mark, rubbing as hard as he can, trying to get the blood off as quickly as possible. 

Despite himself, a high pitched groan escapes his clenched jaw as fire sears the heel of his palm, the mark itself screaming out like a thousand nails sharpening against chalk. When he finally stops, his hand is covered in some mix of blood and ink, and his soulmark has changed. 

It’s still a dragon wrapped around the hilt of a sword, but the lines have thickened and sharpened into slashes, becoming a darker color that matches the wine red of his stolen Fire Nation clothes. The thin scar it used to be had once again turned to a bleeding cut dripping from wrist to palm to elbow to the ground he lay on. 

Katara reaches out a hand as if to touch, but draws back before she does something she regrets. She whispers his name as if it’s an answer to anything and he ignores her. 

“Water,” he says, voice hoarse. His skin burns and stings and he shoves all that pain down deep below his throat and behind his lungs until he can’t feel anything at all. “I need to wash off.” 

XIX. 

Katara tries her best to heal him. She wraps water around his arm, letting it seep into the mess of veins and try to bring the skin back together again. It doesn’t work, or at least, not very well. Soulmarks, she tells Sokka quietly, are different from regular wounds. 

It’ll heal on its own, Sokka figures. He keeps the sleeves of his jacket pulled over his wrists and tells himself that it doesn’t matter. He changes the bandages on his own, this time, not letting even Katara touch the mark. 

She only asks once-- “What does it mean, you think?” 

Sokka shrugs. He doesn’t look at her, just runs a finger over the left sleeve of his jacket. “Same thing it meant last time, I guess. He doesn’t want me, and just thought he’d give me a reminder.” 

XX. 

It shouldn’t matter. He’s been rejected once before, it shouldn’t matter this time. He still didn’t even know the guy. It shouldn’t mean anything, or hurt anymore than the bleeding at the hilt of the sword. 

But it does. It matters, and it hurts, and Sokka can’t do anything about it. He stops sleeping, and Katara doesn’t force him to. Aang and Toph send her a questioning glance when she puts him on the night watch again, but they don’t say anything. 

Sokka just sits at the edge of their camp and watches the moon. He wraps his arms around his knees and pulls them close to his chest, holding himself together by only his fingertips. In the morning, he’ll tell them all he’s fine, just a little anxious about the upcoming invasion. Right now, though, he’ll take deep breaths and smile bitterly at the sky and hate his soulmate just a little bit more. 

XXI. 

Sokka doesn’t think he’s ever felt as alive as he does when he fights with Piandao. He loses, of course, but it’s an exhilarating loss. He’s panting and sweating and laying on the ground while Piandao presses the tip of his sword to Sokka’s throat. 

“Excellent work, Sokka,” Piandao tells him, and Sokka grins. His lips are cracked and there’s dirt under his fingernails and he’s never been closer to getting his throat slit, but he’s proud of himself. 

If afterwards he touches his arm, gently pressing into the soulmark, as if trying to send some message to his soulmate to say, _you rejected me, but I’m worthy, I’m worthy and I’m strong,_ then that’s no one’s business but his own. 

XXII. 

The night before the eclipse, Sokka dreams. 

He’s by the pond again. His soulmate is just sitting there, watching the day roll by. He’s still dressed in Fire Nation clothes, but more formal attire this time. He’s grown up. 

Sokka watches as his soulmate runs a finger over his wrist in the same way Sokka has done so many times before.

“Get up, brother,” someone calls. “Father called for you.” 

His soulmate looks up, and Sokka can tell he’s smiling, but it’s fake. It’s plastic and airy compared to the heavy guilt weighing at his chest. It’s like his smile is a drifting cloud while the rest of his aching body is the earth, slowly sinking into a vast nothingness. 

“Don’t keep him waiting,” the same person says, farther away now, and his soulmate nods. He stands up slowly, brushing the wrinkles out of his robes, and begins to walk away from the pond. 

XXIII. 

The invasion starts.

And it ends. 

He’s failed.


	3. cravings

I. 

In an ideal world, Aang would have literally anyone else as a firebending teacher. 

Scratch that. In an ideal world, there would be no war and no Fire Nation and no firebending at all. 

_Hello, Zuko here._ What a dumbass. 

Sokka hates him. 

II. 

Except then Zuko and Aang go meet dragons and learn how to use firebending the right way and something insufferably soft comes out in Zuko’s rare smiles. Sokka isn’t quite sure when he starts paying attention, and when it turns from suspicion to friendliness, but at some point, he starts watching Zuko firebend because it’s Zuko and it’s firebending and somehow that’s an art. 

Sokka grew up watching Katara teach herself waterbending; making up movements and scrunching her face up tightly to shape the water, bringing down Sokka’s ice castles with an angry flap of her hands, making snowballs lightly packed enough for her to twist them midair. 

He later stood by her when she became a master with Pakku; suddenly able to move water at her slightest will, using the precision of her fingers to change the height of the waves, still soaking Sokka in river water with just a shake of her hand. The transformation feels like it came overnight. 

Firebending is nothing like any of that. Zuko’s fire is just an extension of his arm, his punches flaring out into flame when he hits the air hard enough, a steady control over every lick of fire when he snaps his fingers. It’s clear that this is something Zuko has worked at for years, slowly building up his strength where it didn’t come easily. 

Sokka stands at the edge of Aang’s training ground, leaning against a stone column and pretending he’s not watching. Zuko taps Aang’s arms to shift his stance, and Sokka lingers at the shine of sweat at Zuko’s neck and the curl of hair that won’t stay in place and-- 

Sokka makes himself walk away, and he’s not quite sure why. 

III. 

“Fine,” Sokka mutters. “You caught me. I’m gonna rescue my dad. You happy now?” 

Zuko sighs. “I’m never happy.” 

Sokka rolls his eyes, but part of his heart jumps at that, some involuntary part of him wanting to reach out and make this boy smile, just once. It’s not the right time, though, so Sokka tries to climb up onto Appa and tunes out whatever Zuko’s saying because he knows that Zuko just can’t understand. 

But then Zuko says, “I’m going with you,” and everything changes. 

IV. 

“Pretty clouds,” Sokka says, and immediately wants to smack himself. 

His heartbeat is going unnaturally fast for the moment, and he’s not quite sure what to do with the buzzing in his fingertips that makes him feel like he’s just been electrocuted. He doesn't know if it's the impending mission they’re going on, or the fact that Zuko is just right there, only a few feet away, but he wants to get off this balloon and run as far away as he possibly can. 

Zuko, somehow, doesn’t seem to notice the burning at the tips of Sokka’s ears, and focuses on keeping the war balloon afloat. He twists his wrist and wraps his fist in flames, then does a kind of flicking motion that Sokka tracks with his eyes, over and over again, not meeting Zuko’s gaze, just watching his hands. The conversation moves on, and Sokka looks away from those firebender hands, trying to think about more interesting things. 

“You didn’t leave behind anyone you cared about?” Sokka later asks curiously. 

Zuko shrugs. “I had a, uh, a girlfriend. I guess. Mai.” 

“You guess?” 

Zuko shrugs again, turning away from Sokka so that all he can see is the mess of hair tangled at the side of his face. His voice is strained when he speaks. “Childhood friends, noble families. It’s just what’s… supposed to happen. I love her, in some kind of way.” 

“Huh,” is all Sokka says. Then, “My first girlfriend turned into the moon.” 

V. 

They reach Boiling Rock. Sokka’s father isn’t there. He’s failed again. 

But at the same time, Zuko is rambling nonsense, and Sokka watches him stumble over the words, a smile creeping over his lips. He has absolutely no idea what Zuko is trying to tell him, but he’s pretty sure it’s an attempt to cheer him up and that counts for a lot in Sokka’s book. He’s sweet, when he’s going on like this, talking with his hands and his hair ruffled. Sokka could reach out and brush it away from his face, tender and kind, but he doesn’t. 

“Take a bite out of the silver sandwich,” Zuko finishes, and Sokka looks away before Zuko can see him staring. 

That’s when he sees her-- sitting in the prison yard, hair tied half back, eyes still bright even as her back slumps. Sokka grins. She’s worth the trip here. 

VI. 

A lot of things go wrong in a very short span of time. In no particular order, Sokka thinks about all of the things on his shoulders and tries not to collapse. 

First, Sokka is forced to arrest Zuko, leaving him at the mercy of the warden who apparently is Zuko’s ex-girlfriend’s uncle, and he’s got a chip on his shoulder. The way the warden says “Prince Zuko,” all slick and slurred in that way he does, makes Sokka want to vomit. Zuko’s so much more than the sneer on the warden’s face when he draws out the word “prince.” 

Second, Suki remembers Zuko as the “guy who burnt down my village.” Which, to her credit, is absolutely true. She has no reason to trust him. But Sokka needs the three of them to work together, so he pushes past that glare Suki gives Zuko and tries not to feel like a kid who has to choose between two best friends. Not that Zuko is his best friend. 

Third, Suki had her first soul dream. It’s someone back in the Earth Kingdom, and once her part in the war is done, she’s going to go find them. Sokka hugs her tight when she tells him this, because she’s smiling with her teeth and he likes when she blushes like that. Who is he to take away that happiness from her? But it still stings, just a little bit. 

Fourth, Chit Sang overhears their escape plan, and now they’ve got to free him too, which is just one more person to worry about, and Sokka is already worrying about so much. 

Fifth, Zuko has to go in the cooler. 

VII. 

The cooler is horrifying. Just standing next to it, Sokka can feel the temperature drop ten degrees. He’s seen Zuko and the way he sits shirtless in the sun in the morning and runs on that sunlight the rest of the day. Thinking about the way he absorbs that heat, Sokka knows immediately that a firebender isn’t going to be able to stand this kind of cold without coming out for the worse. 

He watches as Zuko is led away. While he knows that this is part of the plan and Zuko already agreed to it, he’s still terrified. Some lingering memory reminds him that he shouldn’t care this much, but if Sokka is being honest, he’s past the point of being angry that he cares about the guy who has tried to kill him on multiple occasions and he’s fully embraced the feeling as a whole and irreparable part of himself. 

Zuko isn’t the scarred, pony-tailed villain anymore; he’s the boy who wakes up at the crack of dawn to bathe in sunlight, he’s the boy who can win eight out of ten of their sword fighting matches, he’s the boy who teaches katas in a strict voice but corrects them with a soft one, he’s the boy who makes up nonsense just to be like his uncle, he’s the boy who makes annoyingly good tea and heats up the pot with just a touch. 

Sokka watches him get locked in the cooler and the temperature drops. Sokka shudders just looking. There’s an echo of being cold, and goosebumps rise on his arms as he watches ice crawl over the window of the cooler. He doesn’t want to think about what Zuko is feeling right now-- Sokka can’t even shake the cold from his own arms. Still, shivering, he forces himself to walk away. 

VIII. 

Sokka finally opens the cooler door to let Zuko out, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees that Zuko hasn’t frozen to death. 

“I can take you back to your cell if you’ve learned your lesson,” Sokka says, trying to mask all the worry from his voice. 

Zuko looks up and exhales fire, and Sokka’s gut twists when Zuko smiles at him, a flame licking at his mouth. 

“Yes,” Zuko says, showing Sokka the bolts and screws he took from the cooler. “I have. Completely.” 

IX. 

Later, during Plan #2, Sokka, Suki, Hakoda, Chit Sang, and the tied up warden are all in the gondola, and they’ve almost made it out. Zuko is jumping off of the platform even though it’s an impossible distance, and Sokka knows that Zuko’s not going to make it all the way, he’s just short of the window, and so Sokka-- he reaches out and grabs Zuko’s hand and catches him. 

He’s warm. _Tui and La,_ his hand is so warm and Sokka doesn’t want to let go, not even after Zuko’s climbed into the gondola and they’re on their way. He lets go anyways, because he’s not quite sure Zuko wants to be held like that. The last thing Sokka wants is for him to feel uncomfortable. Not now, when Sokka’s realized just how much he needs him. 

X. 

“That’s a problem,” Zuko says, but he says it mildly, as if his hands weren’t shaking just slightly. Sokka’s not quite sure how he noticed that, not when Zuko is keeping his stance and expression so steady, but once he notices, Sokka can’t stop thinking about it. It’s his sister, and Zuko is terrified. 

They don’t have a choice but to fight, though, and so they climb onto the top of the gondola to meet Azula and Ty Lee. Suki stands off against Ty Lee, matching her blow for blow, but Sokka doesn’t get the chance to admire her before Azula is throwing fire and Zuko just barely steps in front of him in time. 

Zuko parts the fire easily, his hands suddenly steady, and they fall into a rhythm that comes easier than any kind of fighting has before. Zuko stays in front, blocking Azula’s fire, taking her blue flames and pushing them away from the two of them. Sokka steps out from behind him, pushing her back to the edge with the point of his sword, and despite that twisted smile, Sokka is sure that they can get away with this. 

XI. 

“Zuzu,” Azula calls out, and Sokka would laugh if they weren’t this close to dying, “have you figured it out yet?” 

“Shut up,” Zuko growls, and he throws a fist above his head and snaps his arms downwards to send a blast of fire straight at Azula, who waves it off easily. 

The words hit Zuko hard, and Sokka really doesn’t have time to examine them, but he falters anyways. He throws a glance to Zuko, frowns as Zuko’s face twists up in-- fear? Anger? He isn’t sure, until Azula laughs, and he realizes. Shame. It twists at Zuko’s face, his jaw too tight and his cheeks flushing. 

Azula grins, clearly knowing something Sokka doesn’t. “All your talk about destiny finally came true, didn’t it?” 

“Shut up!” Zuko yells, voice rough. 

Zuko’s fire is burning hotter than Sokka has ever felt it burn before, but he barely has time to send a blast at Azula before she’s jumped off and onto a gondola on a different line. Sokka doesn’t call out before he’s sliding off the edge of the gondola, scrambling for a handhold. Zuko, though, doesn’t seem to need a warning before he leans over and grabs Sokka’s hand. 

It seems, for a moment, like the world stops. 

Zuko’s hand fits perfectly around Sokka’s hand and for all the adrenaline pumping through his body right now, for all the fighting raging around him, for all the shouting below, all Sokka can think is that Zuko saved him without even thinking about it. He didn’t even have to look. He just knew. 

Zuko pulls him back up without a second thought, and somehow, they survive the fight. 

XII. 

It’s a two day flight back to the Western Air Temple. Sokka’s not quite sure what to do with two days, now that the mission is over and all of the energy seems to be drained from his body. He sits with Zuko at the furnace, watching that twist of his hand as he pushes more fire into the coal to keep the ship running. 

“Thank you,” Sokka says quietly, not sure if Zuko can hear him. 

Zuko glances his way, and gives him one of those soft looks that make Sokka wonder how he had ever feared him in the first place. “You’re welcome, Sokka.” 

They sit in silence for a moment, Sokka leaning his head against the wall with his eyes closed. When the fire stabilizes, Zuko leans against the wall and slides down to sit next to him. He closes his eyes as well, taking deep, ragged breaths. His breath catches in his throat every few seconds and Sokka wonders how long it’s been since Zuko relaxed. 

“The girl who saved us,” Sokka starts, “that was Mai, wasn’t it?” 

Zuko’s silence is enough of an answer. 

“What will happen to her?” 

Zuko shrugs. His eyes are still closed. “She committed treason. Betrayed my sister. Saved me. That kind of thing… prison, maybe. At best.” 

Sokka doesn’t know why he’s pushing it, doesn’t know why he cares this much. Zuko probably doesn’t want to talk about it, but once Sokka starts, he can’t bring himself to stop. “And at worst?” 

“Death, maybe,” Zuko murmurs. 

XIII. 

Sokka watches Zuko stand perfectly still at the furnace, staring into the flames and lost in some other world, and thinks about Mai. She was willing to risk her life for Zuko, a boy who left her behind, knowing the consequences would be severe. With his eyes only half closed, Sokka isn’t sure how anyone could be willing to risk that much. 

But when he exhales and opens his eyes fully, ignoring the fire and the shadows, he realizes that maybe he and Mai have more in common than he might have thought. She was willing to risk everything to save Zuko, and Sokka-- Sokka can understand that. He watches Zuko and wonders what it would be like to hold him like Mai must have, he wonders what it would be like to be allowed to have him.

And then he understands how Mai could have done it. She saved him because she loves him with everything she has, and she was strong enough to say it. Sokka, as he begins aching to touch and to hold, realizes that maybe loving Zuko just makes you that brave. 

XIV. 

They make it back to the Western Air Temple in record time, where they’re greeted by the rest of the group. Katara flings herself into Hakoda’s arms and stays there with no intention of leaving. Sokka joins the hug, and just over his shoulder, he can see Zuko smiling at him. 

“Thank you,” Sokka tells him again after dinner that night, bumping his shoulder gently. “Really.” 

Zuko ducks his head, and it might just be the fire, but Sokka’s pretty sure he’s blushing. “It’s nothing.” 

“You could have died,” Sokka points out. They’re the only ones still awake, sitting next to each other by the fire, the flames dancing across their faces. “That’s not nothing.” 

Zuko laughs, short and quiet, more of a loud breath than anything else. “I guess.” He’s silent for a moment, before glancing at Sokka and away again. He speaks fast, as if he’s not quite sure he’s supposed to be saying anything at all, when he tells Sokka, “You’re a good leader, you know. Even if your plans don’t always work out. You, uh-- I’d follow you. You know?” 

Sokka bit back a grin, trying to keep himself composed through the burning pride in his chest. “Getting all sentimental on me now, Prince Zuko?” 

“Oh shut up,” Zuko mutters, and Sokka knows for sure now that Zuko’s blushing, his cheeks heating up, flushing down to the top of his neck. 

Sokka laughs, trying to keep quiet so he doesn’t wake anyone else up. “You’re cute when you're flustered.” 

And oh _Tui and La,_ Sokka miscalculated here, because Zuko freezes, his whole body going stiff and still, and the fire flashes up then snaps out, fully dark, not even with embers left in between wood. 

“Sorry,” Sokka mutters, “I didn’t mean-- ”

Next to him, Zuko is perfectly still. He doesn’t say anything, and the two of them just sit in the dark, staring at the ashes and refusing to look at each other. The constant burning at his left arm that Sokka’s become so accustomed to suddenly flares up, shooting through his wrist and up to his shoulder. He refuses to flinch or say anything, because now he _knows._

Next to him, Sokka’s not sure if Zuko’s even breathing. 

XV. 

He doesn’t say anything about it. He doesn’t think Zuko would want him to. 

XVI. 

Zuko rejected the bond for a reason. Sokka will… he’ll respect that. He can do that. He’s strong enough. 

They go to sleep wordlessly. In the morning, Sokka will pretend nothing happened, that he felt nothing. Right now, though, he’ll take deep breaths and lay awake in the dark and cry as soundlessly as he knows how. 

XVII. 

Everything is normal when he wakes up again. Zuko gets up early, the same way he always does, to meditate in the sun and drink up all the light he can before the rest of the group rises. They see each other again at breakfast, where Zuko nods at him between spoonfuls of porridge, and Sokka rubs the sleep out of his eyes with a smile. 

It’s like last night never even happened. By lunchtime, Sokka’s half convinced himself he made the whole thing up. There’s always a burning at his left arm, and he had been tired after going to the Boiling Rock. He’s probably just exaggerating how painful it was. It doesn’t mean anything. 

XVIII. 

Sokka watches Zuko and Aang’s firebending practice. They’re running through the basics Zuko taught Aang on their first day of training. Aang has improved, Sokka will give him that. But he’s still not sure if it’s going to be enough to fight the Fire Lord, and Sokka can see that same worry etched into Zuko’s expression. 

Aang, at the end of the day, is still a child. He was born a hundred years ago, sure, but he’s still just a twelve year old boy. He wants to make necklaces for Katara and go penguin sledding and fly around the world with Appa. He didn’t ask to be a part of this war. None of them did. 

XIX. 

Sokka manages to convince Zuko to relax for just one day, which is how the six of them end up at the beach on Ember Island, ignoring the state of the world. 

Zuko is lying on his back, eyes closed, letting the sun soak into his pale skin. The silk shirt he wears is open at the middle, falling to either side of his body and exposing his chest. He takes deep, even breaths, as if he’s trying to sink into the sand and disappear. 

Sokka watches him out of the corner of his eye, and he’s pretty sure that Zuko knows he’s doing it, but neither of them say anything. On Zuko’s other side, Katara has fallen asleep in the sun, a sun hat pulled over her face. Sokka wonders, the same way he always does, what she’s dreaming of. He knows better than to ask, but he wonders all the same. 

“Do you ever think about dreams?” Sokka asks Zuko, before he can stop himself. 

He regrets it even before he’s finished speaking, and he holds his breath while he waits for Zuko to answer. At first, he thinks maybe the wind drowned out the question and Zuko didn’t hear him, sparing them both the awkwardness of this conversation, but then Zuko turns his head to look over at him. His eyes, Sokka notices for the first time, are gold. Zuko is embarrassingly, terribly, frustratingly _beautiful,_ and Sokka wants to lean over to kiss him and light himself on fire. 

“All the time,” Zuko says softly, and it blends right in with the waves crashing against the shore. 

XX. 

They start a campfire by the beach and pretend to just be kids for a little while. They’re on summer vacation and they’re spending it on Ember Island with their friends. It’s a nice game. 

Zuko sits next to Sokka, his arms wrapped around his knees with the flames casting red over his face. There’s just the slightest hint of a smile on his face while he listens to Aang tell a story from his days with the monks. 

If they were teenagers on summer vacation, Sokka thinks, he might lean over and ask if Zuko wants to get out of here, find somewhere quiet. Zuko would say yes, and they would find an empty room in the beach house, or maybe there’s a nice spot further down the shoreline.

But they aren’t teenagers on summer vacation, and there’s a war going on. Sokka’s arm itches painfully, but he can’t bring himself to touch it any more than he already has. 

XXI. 

Most of the group have all fallen asleep in the house, having taken Zuko up on his instructions to just choose whatever room you like best, and please feel free to destroy anything you find in there. 

Sokka and Suki sit together on the porch, watching the stars as they blink over the ocean. There’s a soft breeze running by, combing gently through Sokka’s hair and washing away a bit of the humidity. He’s a warrior of the Water Tribe, and he absolutely was not meant for this kind of heat. 

Suki’s the one to break the silence first. “Do you ever think about how different the world would be if there weren’t soulmates?” 

Sokka frowns, glancing at her. She has her eyes trained on the horizon, her mind clearly far away. She’s beautiful in this light, with the moon lighting up the curve of her mouth and the light bouncing off the ocean and into her eyes. He wonders what it would be like to kiss her again, if she would taste the same now that she’d had her first soulmate dream. 

“Not really,” Sokka lies. “Do you?” 

“Yeah,” Suki admits. Her voice is quiet and he has to strain to hear her. “I think if I didn’t have a soulmate out there, I’d let myself fall in love with you.”


	4. blister

I.

There is an abundance of tea in Zuko’s summer house, and Sokka takes full advantage of it on the nights he can’t sleep. Since those are most nights, he’s gone through a lot of tea since getting to Ember Island. He’s just finished heating a kettle of water when someone asks, “Why’re you awake?” and Sokka jumps half out of his skin, boiling hot water spilling over the mug and onto his hand. 

For some reason, a real burn on his real body doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it hurt when his soulmark was burning. But Sokka curses anyway because _Tui and La,_ it still hurts, and he’s dropped the kettle onto the stove with a clatter that probably woke the rest of the house. His hand is throbbing, and the burning at his skin is all he can think about. 

“Sokka!” someone calls out, and his heart jumps as he recognizes it as Zuko, who has already scared him once tonight, and Sokka’s a little bit bitter that he can do it again. 

“Hold still,” Zuko mutters, reaching out gently. Sokka stares at him, hand shaking as Zuko takes hold of his hand. “This is gonna sting a bit, okay?”

Sokka nods, biting back a wince when Zuko presses his hand to the burn. Zuko pushes down, then as if he’s pulling something out of a bag, Zuko draws his hand away and the burning seems to fade. He does it again, pressing his palm to the burn and then pulling it back, drawing away the heat and with it, the pain. 

“Better?” Zuko asks, glancing up at Sokka, who nods. “Oh, good, I wasn’t sure if that would actually work.”

Sokka raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t know if it was going to work?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve seen my uncle do it,” Zuko says, stumbling over the words, “and I figured if I just, like, made the motion, it might work, but… yeah it was mostly guessing.” 

Sokka laughed quietly, dropping his head back and closing his eyes. “Zuko, you…” he stops, looking down to Zuko again, not quite sure where he was going with that sentence. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Zuko says, offering a small smile back. 

There’s a pause, where they just look at each other, and Sokka thinks maybe his hand is still burning, because the skin there feels like it’s getting hotter. He’s about to ask Zuko about it when he looks down and realizes that Zuko is still clutching his hand, and Zuko’s hands are red hot. 

Zuko must look down at the same time Sokka does, because he drops his hand immediately and steps back as if he’s crossed a line. When Sokka looks over at him, Zuko’s face is a bright pink, and maybe it’s his whole body that’s burning just slightly-- not dangerously, but like Zuko’s lighting a wildfire somewhere in the cavity of his ribcage and it’s seeping through his skin. 

“I, um.” Zuko waves a hand. “Tea.” 

“Tea,” Sokka repeats, staring at him. Then, “Oh, right. I was making tea. Do you-- do you want some?” 

II. 

It becomes a nightly ritual. They get up after everyone else has gone to sleep and they make a pot of tea, trying out the various different kinds stored in the pantry. Zuko can heat the pot with a touch, and after that first night, he’s always the one who handles the hot water. 

Besides, Sokka just enjoys sitting back and watching Zuko make tea-- it’s one of many things that he’s especially meticulous about, making sure it’s the right temperature, letting it steep for the exact right amount of time, with periodic taste tests, just in case. If Zuko’s got it down to an art, Sokka would love to see what his uncle does. 

They drink their tea sitting on the couch in the living room, sharing a knitted blanket that just barely covers the both of them. Zuko tells him about being a kid, his summers in this house, and Sokka tells him about his life in the South Pole, growing up in constant winter. 

Zuko falls asleep there, one night. He’s curled into the corner, having stolen most of the blanket for himself, his head resting against the back of the couch and one hand tucked under his chin. He looks peaceful there, in a way that Sokka doesn’t think he’s ever seen before.

It’s there, with a start, that Sokka realizes just what Zuko means to him. He’s the first friend his age that Sokka’s ever had, and he’s the first person to look at Sokka and not see him as the brother of a waterbender or the son of a chief, but just as who he is. Zuko looks at him and just sees a friend.

That, Sokka decides, is more important than having a soulmate. 

III. 

But he falls asleep on the couch next to Zuko and he dreams anyway. 

He’s back by the pond again, where everything seems to start. The fog lingers at the edge of his vision, present but not quite filling the garden and wrapping it all in a smokescreen. His soulmate is a child again, and Sokka recognizes this part of the dream. 

He sits cross legged by the pond, and puts his arms out. He pulls his sleeves up and stares at the soulmark-- clean and undamaged, unlike what it’s been for three years now. He presses a hand to his arm and squeezes, as if expecting something to happen. 

This is where the dream ended last time, and Sokka suddenly feels sick. There was a reason this dream ended, and he suddenly doesn’t want to know what happens next. 

“Do you need help with that, brother?” someone calls, and his soulmate looks up. Coming out of the fog, there’s a young girl, his sister, her face sharper and crueler than Sokka remembers from his first dreams. 

His soulmate starts to say something, but cuts himself off. 

“I can’t make myself do it,” he finally confesses, shoulders sagging. “I know I have to, and I want to, but I-- I’m too much of a coward to do it myself.” 

His sister reaches him, kneeling down on his left side. She takes his arm in hand, running a finger over the mark. Sokka shivers. Though her touch is light, barely there, it’s _wrong._

“Count of three,” she says, and Sokka’s soulmate nods. She presses her hand to his arm and squeezes gently. “I love you, brother. Remember that. _One. Two. Thr-- ”_

IV. 

Sokka tears himself out of the dream, breathing hard, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. His heart is beating rapidly, and his left arm is throbbing like he can still feel his soulmate’s sister’s grip, her nails digging into his skin and the burn that must have come next. 

He runs a hand through his hair, taking a shaky breath. He’s still on the couch in the living room, Zuko curled up peacefully next to him. Adrenaline is pumping through his veins, and everything in Sokka is bursting to scream or hit something or cry and he doesn’t know which is worse. 

Slowly so as not to wake Zuko, Sokka untangles himself from the blanket and stands up. His shirt is sticking to his chest, and he’s suddenly freezing cold, even in the humid island air. He leaves the house, closing the door behind him, and sits down on the porch. He doesn’t want to go too far away, but he thinks he’s either suffocating or freezing to death, and he needs to get anywhere other than right next to Zuko. 

A lot of his questions have been answered, he thinks, but he still feels like he knows nothing at all. He looks down at his arm, slowly taking off the Fire Nation arm bands he fell asleep in. The mark hasn’t changed, even after the dream. The dragon still glares out at him, the lines a thick wine red, like dried blood stains against his brown skin. Whichever spirit is in charge of soulmates, Sokka decides, is going to get a piece of his mind in the afterlife. 

V. 

Sokka is still sitting on the porch by the time the sun rises. He watches it slowly burn over the horizon, dipping gold into the ocean and washing the dark waves over with red. 

He doesn’t notice Zuko coming outside until he’s sitting down next to him. He moves quietly, only a shadow until he’s right next to Sokka, just a hair’s breadth away from touching. Sokka holds his breath until Zuko starts talking, his voice still thick with sleep, rasping at the edges. 

“I like tea,” Zuko says quietly. 

Sokka looks at him. His heart is going faster than it should, and he could swear the burning at his arm has turned into an itch, and he scratches at it before he can stop himself. “I know. We have tea every night.” 

“Right,” Zuko says. He’s staring at Sokka’s arm, watching him scratch at the re-wrapped armbands, something hungry in his eyes. He bites his lip and turns away, and Sokka loses sight of his expression. “I like talking to you. At night. I think I sleep better.” 

“Yeah,” Sokka says, but the word gets caught somewhere between the aching at his soulmark and the tightness of his lungs, and he’s not sure if he actually says it out loud. “Me too.” 

VI. 

Sokka’s running his sword over a whetstone while he watches Aang and Toph throw rocks at each other. Aang’s improved from the first lessons that Sokka watched, and he’s able to better dodge the boulders Toph lifts with only a stamp of her foot. With a pulling motion, Aang brings up another boulder from deep in the earth and flings it towards Toph, who side steps as if it's nothing. 

“Want to spar?” Zuko asks, standing behind him. Sokka jumps slightly at the noise, exhaling deeply when he sees Zuko standing there, holding his scabbard in one hand and his eyebrow raised. Zuko shrugs, pretending not to notice him jump, which Sokka is grateful for. “With all the focus on firebending, I’m getting rusty.” 

Sokka smiles, a grin already on his lips. Zuko’s getting that look on his face, the one where he’s not quite sure if he’s done something wrong or if he’s supposed to be laughing at the joke. He tugs at his hair awkwardly, and Sokka stands up. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s find a quiet spot.” 

VII. 

Sokka barely ever wins when they spar. Zuko has trained with his dao blades since he was a kid, and Sokka’s only just starting to learn to fight with a sword. But Zuko’s off today, his movements slower, his eyes narrowed as Sokka pushes him back. 

It’s a long fight, longer than he usually manages to hold out, but then Sokka’s disarmed him, first one blade and then the other, dropping into the dust and yellowing grass. Not one to give up, Zuko lashes out with a punch and while Sokka is stumbling back, Zuko’s kicked his feet out from under him, and Sokka is on the ground, sword lost. 

Zuko is standing over him, smiling, and Sokka grins back, catching his breath for a half second before kicking at Zuko’s ankles and sending him into the hard dirt. Zuko groans, head falling back, and before he can get up, Sokka pins him down. 

VIII. 

Sokka is straddling his waist, holding Zuko’s wrists against the ground. Their faces are close enough that Sokka can feel Zuko’s ragged breaths against his own lips, hot and fast. They’re both breathing out of time, the rush of the fight still pumping through their veins even after it’s ended. 

“Got you,” Sokka says, trying to sound strong, but he’s fifteen and Zuko is pinned beneath him and everything comes out with more breath and less confidence. 

Zuko doesn’t say anything, just breathes hard, eyes caught on Sokka and unable to move. Sokka presses down just a bit harder on Zuko’s wrists and he goes perfectly still, lips slightly parted and breath caught somewhere in the back of his throat. 

They stare at each other for a thousand years. Sokka stops breathing at some point between Zuko’s sharp inhale and the burning that starts at Sokka’s palms. Zuko’s wrists are heating up again, the same way they did the other night, a flushed red running from his cheeks down to his neck. Sokka isn’t sure whether it's from the heat of the sword match or from the way that Sokka’s face is only an inch away from Zuko’s mouth, but he’s overheating. If Sokka stays there any longer, he wouldn’t be surprised if Zuko started steaming. 

“Zuko,” Sokka says, because Zuko apparently isn’t going to say anything ever again, and Zuko shivers, eyes fluttering closed and open again. “I think I won.” 

Zuko nods, and their foreheads bump together. That seems to wake him up, and he breaks free of Sokka’s grip to shove him off. Sokka rolls over, landing flat on his back in the dirt. They just lay there next to each other, the sun blazing on their faces, sweat drying with every breath, and Sokka feels something in his arm that he hasn’t felt in years-- a coolness that makes his heart skip a beat like maybe the soulmark is healing, and he _knows._

It’s the twist in his gut and the breath bursting in his lungs and the heat of the boy next to him. Sokka _knows_ that Zuko is the one making him burn, the one that’s been making him burn since the first time he ever dreamed. He thought that maybe Boiling Rock was a coincidence, but this is undeniable. He closes his eyes and just listens to the sound of Zuko’s breath. Unconsciously, his fingers twitch just a little bit closer to Zuko’s hand. 

IX. 

The play is awful. It really, truly is. Sokka is, of course, completely caught up in it. Suki’s rolling her eyes at him, and he’s pretty sure that Aang and Katara didn’t bother to buy his fire flakes, but he still can’t tear his eyes away. 

Except then Actor Zuko and Actress Azula are confronting each other at the top of the stage, with red and blue streamers flinging like wind from their fingers. 

“You are an enemy!” Azula yells, and Sokka wants to roll his eyes. The real Azula is ten times scarier. He wonders if the people of the Fire Nation know that their princess is evil. 

“I am the rightful heir to the throne!” Zuko tells her, and shoots more fire at her. 

Azula laughs and throws her head back, and yeah, that’s more like the Azula he knows. “How can you be the rightful heir?” she asks, cackling. “Not when your soulmate is a _boy!”_

The entire audience bursts into laughter. 

Sokka doesn’t move, he can’t bring himself to breathe. He’s frozen in place, like Katara has wrapped him in a cool rock of ice and is going to let him die there. He manages to turn his head to find Zuko and snaps out of his shock.

Zuko is shaking, not in the obvious way he does when he’s angry, but in the terrified, uncontrollable way he does when he’s about to lose it. His hands are tangled tightly into the silk of his pants, gripping the fabric so hard that his knuckles are turning white and his hands are solidifying into claws. 

Next to him, Aang is about to say something, and Sokka can tell it’s going to be something stupid, and maybe Zuko knows that too, because he stumbles as he rises and then he bolts out of the theatre. 

X. 

Hours later, Sokka finds him at the beach, sitting half on a distant sandbar and half in the water. He’s sitting there with his knees pulled up to his chest, letting the tide rise over him, the waves beginning to wash over his calves and soaking him in saltwater. 

It doesn’t take long to swim over to him, and Sokka only bothers to take off his shoes before he dives into the water. Zuko doesn’t even look at him when Sokka climbs behind him onto the sandbar, and that’s only further evidence that he’s come completely unraveled. 

“Hey,” Sokka says quietly, sitting on his right, unsuccessfully squeezing the water out of his clothes. The arm bands have been soaked through, and they stick uncomfortably against his arms. “You okay?” 

Zuko shrugs, and Sokka gets the feeling that he would rather literally anyone else had come out here to find him. Sokka turns away, looking out at the endless horizon of ocean. He had to come out here, he had to have been the one to find Zuko, because if he doesn’t see Zuko immediately, he’s pretty sure his soulmark is going to burn straight through bone, and some little voice in the back of his head tells him Zuko can stop it.

Looking over at him though, Zuko’s breaths are still unsteady, rattling in his ribcage. Sokka inhales deeply, holding it for a second, and then exhales. He does it again. Without going so far as to glance at him, Zuko begins to mimic him, taking deep breaths in time with the waves. Sokka inhales, exhales. Zuko breathes. 

XI. 

“I don’t know how they even found out,” Zuko says, barely a whisper. He’s resting his cheek against his knees, looking away from Sokka. “Azula was the only one to ever guess, and she-- ”

Zuko breaks off, and there’s this choked noise that Sokka could swear is a sob. He shifts, pressing his forehead against his knees. “No one was ever supposed to know.” 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Sokka murmurs, though he doesn’t know if that’s true at all. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Zuko still doesn’t look at him, burying his face in his knees. His voice is muffled when he speaks. “How can it not matter?” 

“The people who love you don’t care what gender your soulmate is,” Sokka says, as gently as he can, though he’s furious at everyone who ever told him differently. “Hey. Look at me, Zuko.” 

To his surprise, Zuko actually turns to look at him. His good eye is puffy, like he’s been crying, and the scar seems bloodier in the shadows. 

“You’re loved,” Sokka whispers. “Your friends love you. Whatever gender your soulmate is.” 

Zuko closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. He looks so young and so tired. Tentatively, Sokka reaches for the arm clasped around his knees, slowly tracing his hand along until he reaches Zuko’s back, trying not to surprise him. 

He’s completely still, but doesn’t protest, so Sokka moves slightly closer, until they’re pressed together with Sokka’s arm around his shoulder. Sokka can smell the soap he’s been using half covering the scent of burnt wood and the fire flakes he likes, he can feel the rise and fall of his breath, can see the bob of his throat as he swallows. They’re so close. 

Sokka is beginning to doubt all of this; he’s trying to remember when the last time he showered is, trying to assess Zuko’s level of discomfort, when he finally relaxes. Zuko curls against him, melting into his chest, and yes, Sokka thinks, it’s all going to be okay. 

XII. 

It must be past three in the morning, but Sokka and Zuko are still curled up on the couch, trying not to fall asleep. After the disastrous play and their moment on the beach, Zuko decided that oh, physical touch is a good thing, and when they’re alone, Zuko will melt into Sokka’s arms and just stay there. He’s constantly stressed and carries himself with his muscles pulled taut like the string of a bow, but he’s soft, too, and Sokka wants to hold him literally all of the time for the rest of time. 

XIII. 

Sozin’s Comet is three days away, and Sokka is also pretty sure that Zuko is three minutes away from a complete breakdown. But for now, they’ve settled themselves under the knitted blanket that covers the two of them perfectly when they’re tangled up like this, and nothing seems entirely real. 

“I wanted to say something,” Zuko says suddenly, breaking the silence they settled into after finishing their tea. “At the war meeting I went to. I wanted to tell my father not to do it. The people of Ba Sing Se didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Sokka opens his eyes, running his fingers in small circles around Zuko’s shoulder, and holds him just a little tighter. “Why didn’t you?” 

“It didn’t go well,” Zuko whispers, “last time that I spoke in a war meeting.” 

Sokka looks over at him, but Zuko’s face is pressed into Sokka’s shoulder, and the only thing he can see is the knotted ridges and falls of the scar covering the left half of his face. “What happened?” 

Zuko sighs, his chest rising and sinking. “My face,” is all he says, and that’s all Sokka needs to hear. 

XIV. 

He hopes Aang kills the Fire Lord. Forget the Air Nomad ways and the pacifist philosophy he has, forget all of it, and kill the man. 

Despite being a warrior and battle strategist, Sokka has never thought of himself as an intentionally violent person. It’s all been in self-defense. But when Zuko presses his head closer to Sokka’s chest in his sleep and Sokka holds him, he hopes Aang kills the Fire Lord and he hopes it burns. 

XV. 

Zuko is fast asleep. Sokka is halfway there, his only movements being his fingers still running in circles on Zuko’s arm, listening to the sound of his breathing. It’s steady, and Sokka feels himself falling into the same pattern, their hearts beating to the same drum. 

They’ve shifted to lie down together, Zuko tucked between the back of the couch and Sokka, his head resting on Sokka’s chest. He shifts slightly in his sleep, and his hand comes up to rest on Sokka’s heart. Sokka closes his eyes, just leaning into the feeling of Zuko’s palm pressed close to his heartbeat. 

He opens his eyes, just for a moment, to smile at Zuko. The kind of smile that no one is supposed to see, the kind of smile you give to someone you love when they’re not looking. He adjusts himself slightly, careful not to wake Zuko up, and presses a light kiss to the top of his forehead. The touch is barely there, but Sokka’s lips get warm and he could swear that Zuko is smiling in his sleep. 

XVI. 

Sokka sits at the edge of the porch, eyes almost closed, just feeling the warmth of the sunset. Zuko is next to him, leaning back on his palms and staring out at the sun. 

“My mother and I would feed the turtle ducks at the palace garden,” Zuko says eventually, not looking at Sokka. From where he sits, Sokka only catches the scarred eye, the one always narrowed into a slit, whatever his mood is. It makes it hard to figure out exactly what Zuko is doing with this conversation. 

“Your mom sounds nice,” Sokka says. 

Zuko nods, a small smile on his lips. He glances over at Sokka and then back at the sky. “She was the only good part of my family. Well, her and my uncle.” 

“You’re good.” 

“Thanks,” Zuko says, chuckling slightly. Sokka can tell he doesn’t believe it, but before he can argue that point, Zuko starts talking again. “I don’t think Aang is going to be able to do it. Kill my father. No matter how awful he is.” 

Sokka swallows down a lump in his throat and looks over at Zuko. He’s still, hair blowing slightly in the wind, but his mouth is set in a thin line. 

“Someone needs to,” Zuko continues. “I need-- the _world_ needs him gone, forever. Aang won’t do it. Katara is too good. I don’t know Suki well enough to make that call. Toph… she’s a kid. I’m not letting her become a murderer. However formidable she is, she doesn’t deserve to carry that.” 

“You’re saying it’s going to be one of us.” 

Sokka takes a deep breath, tearing his eyes away from Zuko’s sharp nod. Knowing everything that he’s done, Sokka could kill Ozai. He could make himself do it. He blinks hard, then turns back to Zuko. “You have every right to kill him after all he’s done to you, but… why me?” 

Zuko shrugs, eyes wandering over Sokka’s expression, the droop of tired eyes, the tension of battle-worn hands, his lips wet with moonlight. He meets Sokka’s gaze. Then he lifts one side of his smile, and murmurs, “Because I trust you.” 

XVII. 

Aang disappears.

Sokka does not completely break down. He doesn’t, and he thinks maybe he deserves some credit for that. The end of the world is coming on fiery wings and they have no one to face it except a couple of kids. Sure, Toph and Katara and Suki and Zuko are an especially powerful couple of kids, but they’re facing the Fire Lord and his army. Sokka looks up at the moon and prays to Tui and La. He has never felt smaller. 

XVIII. 

Sokka’s not sure what happens in the tent when Zuko goes to meet Iroh. All he knows is that Zuko comes back out and he’s been crying, but Iroh has a protective arm around his shoulder and they’re both smiling. 

Sokka aims a small smile at Zuko, but it seems like Iroh is the one who catches it, because there’s a twinkle in his eye when Iroh looks between the two of them. Sokka swallows down the burning at his cheeks, hoping it doesn’t show. Iroh smiles back at him, and Sokka figures he knows something he and Zuko have never said out loud. If only Iroh could give them the words to say it. 

XIX. 

The night before they leave, Sokka finds a spot a little ways from camp where he can sit in the shadows and try to calm his mind. It’s dark, and the moon looks impossibly small in the distance. This time tomorrow, either everything will be over or everything will be gone.

Zuko, somehow, impossibly, finds Sokka hidden between trees and shadows. He’s beginning to think that Zuko has some sort of innate compass that will point in the direction of whatever he wants at any given time. 

“Hey,” Sokka says, looking up when Zuko approaches.

Zuko gives him a small smile, and Sokka turns his head away as Zuko sits down next to him. “I brought some tea. Figured we could continue our tradition right up until the end of the world.” 

“Thanks,” Sokka says, taking the mug Zuko hands to him. It warms his hands immediately, and he grips it tightly. They sit quietly for a moment, Zuko sipping at his tea and only looking at Sokka from the corner of his eyes. Sokka swallows and looks over. “You ready for any of this?” 

“No,” Zuko says. He says it like it’s nothing, just a fact he’s reading from a textbook. But it’s a confession, a word in the place of the brave, angry mask he wears all of the time. Zuko glances Sokka. “You?” 

Sokka shakes his head. “No.” 

XX. 

It gets darker, until Sokka can barely see the mug in his hands. He sets it down, and Zuko looks at him, his eyebrow half raised. Sokka bites back his smile before opening up his arm and letting Zuko lean into him. The air in Ba Sing Se is cool, a soft breeze meandering through the woods. Zuko, though, is as warm as always, warming Sokka down to his bones. 

“Azula,” Zuko starts, his voice muffled when he presses himself closer to Sokka. It seems like he’s always trying to get closer, have Sokka hold him tighter, burrowing farther into the hollow of Sokka’s heart. Little does he know that Sokka has been building him a home there for years. 

Sokka hums slightly, leaning over to rest his cheek on top of Zuko’s head. Zuko sighs. 

“She burned off my soulmark,” Zuko says quietly, and Sokka flinches. 

Zuko starts to pull back but Sokka swallows down all his questions, and holds him closer. There’s a sick burning in his stomach, like the tea went down too fast and too hot. Zuko settles back into Sokka’s arms and keeps talking. 

“I asked her to.” Zuko takes a shaky breath, and Sokka watches as Zuko grips his left forearm in his other hand hard enough that it looks like it might hurt. “I was scared, I-- my family doesn’t believe in soulmates. I was going to be married off to some noblewoman eventually. I wasn’t supposed to, but I… I was getting attached. To my soulmate. And I didn’t know how to stop. Let go of him. So I…” 

“So you broke the connection,” Sokka finishes. 

XXI. 

They sit there for a long time, with Zuko leaning against Sokka and his knees pulled up to his chest, Sokka clutching Zuko’s shoulder and leaning against an old maple tree, all in silence. Their mugs of tea have grown cold next to them. Sokka breathes slowly, a loose strand of Zuko’s hair tickling his ear, and closes his eyes. 

Sokka whispers, when he finally speaks. “I love you, you know.” 

Zuko goes still, but Sokka can’t bring himself to open his eyes. He can’t feel his heart and he doesn’t want to anymore. Finally, Zuko exhales, and Sokka can feel his body temperature rising with his breath, the wildfire in his ribcage running out of bone to eat and beginning to bite at his skin. 

“Tell me again,” Zuko says quietly, “when the war is over.” 

XXII. 

Sokka used to dream of fire. Not every night, but a lot of them. There were the weaker flames his soulmate made dance between his fingers. The stronger ones he fought with, learning at the hands of tutors who burnt him when he stepped out of place. The flames in the torches in the corridors of his soulmate’s home. The flickering light of a fireplace. A master throwing a fireball that he can’t dodge fast enough. 

The fire during Sozin’s Comet is nothing like that. It’s roaring and angry and all-consuming. Platforms jut out from the airships, and firebenders move in unison as they throw fire blasts at the ground below, again and again. The forest is already engulfed in flames, but the benders have an endless supply of fire and they keep going. 

Sokka sucks in a breath, watching as the airships move on, getting closer and closer to the city. 

“There’s so many,” Suki whispers. 

Sokka’s voice shakes when he talks and he can’t tear his eyes away from the fleet. “Okay. Okay. We can do this. I’ve got an idea.”

XXIII. 

Sokka doesn’t remember much of the battle. He remembers the airships crashing, holding onto Toph as tight as he can, his fingers slick with sweat and her so close falling away. He remembers Suki, rising up on the last remaining airship like she owns the sky, saving both of them. He remembers Aang, eyes glowing as he enters the Avatar State. He remembers Ozai, slumped onto the ground with his only power taken away from him, eyes drooping and muscles weak. 

The troops on the ground surrender after that. It’s over, Sokka tells himself, but the airship is running as fast it can, cutting through the sky on its way to the Fire Nation, and Sokka dreads what he’ll find there. The world might be saved for now, but if Katara, if Zuko-- 

He can’t let himself think about it. They’re okay. They have to be. 

XXIV. 

Sokka takes off the arm wraps carefully while he hides at the bottom level of the airship. He doesn’t want anyone to see this. The soulmark is still there, the thick red lines seeming to pulse as he breathes. For the first time in years, he thinks maybe the dragon is moving, but when he blinks, it stops. 

Sokka would feel it, wouldn’t he? If Zuko died?

XXV.

They get to the Fire Nation palace and there’s blood rushing through Sokka’s ears, all sound dulled as he stumbles off the airship and runs as best he can. Behind him, Sokka knows that everyone else is walking just behind him, and he knows they must all be just as worried about Katara and Zuko as he is, but he can’t breathe for the flames eating his stomach. In just one fight, he could lose his sister and his-- Zuko. Ba Sing Se may not have been destroyed, but Sokka’s world could still end. 

XXVI. 

Sokka goes fast enough it hurts. He gets into the courtyard, and he sees Katara and he sees Zuko and finally, finally, Sokka lets himself cry.

XXVII. 

Sokka is clinging to Katara with shaking hands. He hasn’t held her like this since they were kids and afraid of the dark, but he was so close to losing his baby sister and he never wants to let go of her, just in case it happens again. He knows he’s sobbing, that gross kind of crying where your nose starts to run and you can’t breathe, but Katara closes her eyes and buries her own cries in his arms, so Sokka can’t find it in him to be embarrassed. 

Katara shoves him off eventually, running over to Aang. Sokka stumbles on his bad leg, but someone steadies him before he falls. There’s this shooting pain down his arm, but it stops as soon as it starts. Sokka turns and meets Zuko’s eyes and despite everything, despite the world that just barely didn’t end, Sokka has never felt brighter. 

Zuko is gripping his arm tightly, nails digging into Sokka’s skin, but he doesn’t notice, just falls forward and Zuko catches him. Sokka is still crying, and when Zuko pulls him close, slipping into the hollow in his heart, Sokka can feel Zuko’s tears against his shoulders. 

XXVIII. 

When they can breathe again, Sokka pulls back but doesn’t lessen his grip on Zuko. Zuko is breathing hard, and he presses their foreheads together, closing his eyes. Sokka can feel his breath against his lips, and he opens his mouth just slightly. 

He closes his eyes. “Zuko.” 

“Yeah?” 

Sokka opens his eyes, and all he sees is Zuko. Nothing matters except Zuko looking at him, bright eyed and alive. He smiles, another tear slipping over the unscarred cheek. 

“Hey,” Sokka whispers. 

Zuko inhales slowly. “Hey.”


	5. aftermath

I. 

There are plans to be made. Laws to be changed. People to be arrested. Villages to be rebuilt. Treaties to sign. 

Sokka doesn’t care. It can wait. The rest of the world can wait, because right now the sun is fading and all Sokka knows is that everyone he loves lasted through the night. That’s all he can ask for. 

In the morning, Sokka and his family will go back to saving the world, repairing everything that’s broken. Right now, though, he’ll take deep breaths and sit on the palace steps in the fading light and hold them all close. 

II. 

Zuko leads them to the bedroom in the palace that has the least red and gold. It’s for one of the ambassadors, who ran for it when Azula was set to be Fire Lord. He had the right idea, Sokka thinks, to get out of here early. 

The bed is only big enough for two, maybe three if you stretch it, but they all pile onto it anyways. They’ve been sleeping in the same rooms together for so long that Sokka doesn’t think he’ll be able to fall asleep once he’s truly alone. 

They don’t bother with blankets or pillows. Katara just tosses them to the carpeted floor and presses herself between the headboard and Aang. She closes her eyes immediately, not even stirring as Aang shifts closer. Toph curls up horizontally in the middle of the bed, her head on Aang’s stomach and her feet hooked over the edge of the mattress. Suki ends up next to her, folded in on herself and eyes shut tightly. It’s the first rest they’ve had in a year. 

III. 

“Lie down,” Sokka murmurs, patting the edge of the bed next to him. He’s next to Suki, with just enough room for one more. 

Zuko glances between him and the others, and it takes Sokka a moment to realize that he’s never seen Zuko touch any of them except for him. He was a part of a group hug once, but it was stiff and uncomfortable and Zuko pulled away first. He corrects Aang’s moves with a gentle hand, but he’s never gotten closer than that. 

“You said you sleep better when you’re with me, right?” Sokka asks, and Zuko nods, his expression unreadable. “Then lie down. It’s just me. Forget the others.” 

Zuko swallows hard, but he looks too exhausted to argue. He hasn’t changed out of his torn shirt, and the lightning scar still bleeds angrily over his stomach. He’s already half asleep when he lies down next to him, pulling Sokka’s hand over his waist and threading his fingers through Sokka’s own. Sokka smiles to himself, pressing his forehead against Zuko’s back. They’re both asleep within minutes. 

IV. 

At some point in the morning the others must have gotten up, because they’re gone when Sokka wakes up with his legs tangled between Zuko’s legs and Zuko’s arm around his waist. He doesn’t open his eyes just yet, not quite sure he wants to face the day ahead of him, but he can feel Zuko’s light, even breaths tickling his nose. 

Sokka finally opens his eyes, slowly adjusting to the light. Zuko is still fast asleep, his face pressed against the crumpled sheets and his mouth half open. A lock of hair falls over his cheek, and Sokka, heart beating out of time, brushes it behind his ear again. 

It’s that movement that seems to wake Zuko, eyes fluttering open until he’s gazing at Sokka as if he’s half in a dream. Sokka briefly wonders if Zuko dreams anymore, memories slowly coming back in the way they have for Sokka, but he pushes the thought aside when Zuko gives him an inch of a smile. 

“You’re pretty when you sleep,” Sokka mumbles, not thinking, “all soft like that.” 

Zuko flinches, sudden and instinctual, his hand jerking from Sokka’s waist. But before Sokka can apologize, dancing away from compliments in the same way he’s been doing for weeks now, Zuko stills again. His hand settles on Sokka, the weight of it as familiar as the burn on Sokka’s soulmark. 

“Oh,” is all Zuko says, and Sokka wonders if this is forwards or backwards progress. “You’re, uh, yeah. You’re. Yeah. Okay. Good.” 

It’s not quite what Sokka wanted to hear, but he cracks a smile anyways. Zuko has his hand on him and the light is hitting his eyes in just that way that makes him look more golden than the sun, and Sokka can live with this.

V. 

Zuko rolls away from Sokka eventually, turning to face the ceiling, but they’re still pressed close, shoulder to shoulder. It’s quiet in the room, and Sokka can hear songbirds outside the window, singing as if they know what’s happened. 

“I’m going to be Fire Lord,” Zuko says quietly. He’s curled his hands into fists, tensing up. “They’re gonna put me in charge of everything.” 

Sokka nods, though Zuko can’t see him. He stares up at the ceiling and wonders how the world can possibly expect this of him. Next to him, he hears Zuko exhale deeply, as if he’s trying to rid his lungs of a thousand years of stress. He unclenches his fists, letting his fingers unfurl. 

Zuko murmurs, “I can change things,” and Sokka’s heart skips a beat. 

“Yeah?” 

Sokka doesn’t move. He’s not sure he can, at this point. But Zuko shifts just slightly to the side, finding Sokka’s hand and tangling their fingers together. Sokka holds tight, sinking into the soft skin at Zuko’s palm, the feeling of slender fingers at his knuckles. Firebender’s hands. Zuko is warm where they touch, but Sokka shivers when he squeezes his hand. 

“Yeah,” Zuko breathes. 

VI. 

Aang didn’t kill Ozai, and Sokka isn’t sure how he feels about that. He stands next to Zuko as they watch a guard transport him from a makeshift jail cell and down to a secure Fire Nation prison that Zuko had painstakingly reviewed to make sure none of Ozai’s remaining supporters could help him escape from it. 

“I hate him,” Zuko murmurs. He doesn’t look at Sokka, or at the rest of the group on his other side. “If he didn’t die, I at least hope he rots in prison.” 

“There needs to be a trial,” Aang says, but no one seems to hear him. 

Sokka looks over at Zuko, and from where he stands, all he can see is the scar. He reaches out to tap the back of Zuko’s hand, light enough that Zuko can ignore it if he wants, but quietly asking permission. Zuko doesn’t look at him, but he opens his hand and holds Sokka tight. His touch is warm, like Sokka has come to expect, but he’s so much more than fire.

Ozai lost everything when Aang took his firebending away-- his strength, his power, his confidence, his supporters-- but Zuko isn’t his father, and he never has been. Sokka tilts his head forward to see the rest of Zuko’s expression. He’s fire, yes, but he’s brighter than he is dangerous. If Ozai and Azulon and Sozin were comets and destruction, Zuko is sunlight and life. 

“He’s gone,” Sokka says quietly. “He can’t hurt us anymore.” 

Zuko turns to him, squeezing his hand. “Even if he could, I wouldn’t let him.” 

VII. 

Once Katara and Aang have gone off to travel the world, and Toph and Suki go back to the Earth Kingdom, Zuko finds Sokka by the pond, leaning against the tree and watching the clouds go by. Sokka watches him as he approaches, his heart seeming to speed up as Zuko gets closer. His breaths keep steady when Zuko sits next to him, but it’s a conscious choice, a counting in his head as he measures out each inhale and exhale. 

Zuko sits down next to him, close enough that they’re touching but far enough that moving away wouldn’t be noticeable. Except this is Zuko, and Sokka can’t help but catalogue every movement he makes and he can’t help the stutter in his heart when he sees Zuko come closer. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Zuko says, picking at his nails and not meeting Sokka’s eyes. “I’ve been thinking you should stay.” 

Sokka frowns, glancing at him. “Stay?” 

“Only if you want to!” Zuko blurts out. “Like, if you don’t want-- that’s, you know, that’s okay, it’s just that I want to see you, like, all of the time, and you-- could have a job here or something or anything you wanted to do-- I just-- here. With. You know.” 

Sokka stares at him. A blush seems to soak over Zuko’s skin, his face and neck flushing a dark red. He looks away from Sokka, ducking his head, and Sokka can already hear the apologies coming as he tries to take back every word he just said.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, leaning towards him. He’s grinning. “Are you asking me to live here with you?” 

Zuko drops his face into his hands, fully bending over to get himself as far from Sokka as possible without actually moving away. Sokka sees him swallow hard, watching the line of his throat shift and his shoulders rise as he shrugs slowly.

“Kind of,” Zuko offers, finally looking up from his hands. “Is that okay?” 

“More than okay,” Sokka tells him, and he thinks his heart is going to burst from all the aching in his chest. “Yeah, Zuko. I’ll stay.” 

VIII. 

He dreams that night. 

In the dream, he’s in a dark room, lit by flickering torches. His soulmate walks forward slowly, dual dao blades in hand. At the far side of the room, Ozai sits. He smiles, in that twisted way that makes the floor spin under his soulmate’s feet, like he can’t stand and breathe at the same time. 

“Now I realize that banishment is far too merciful a penalty for treason,” Ozai says and Sokka wants to scream, wants to turn and run and get his soulmate out of that room. He can feel the heat rising, the eclipse ending. Ozai closes his eyes and Sokka opens his mouth to scream, but it’s a memory and he can’t do anything to change the burning that’s going to come next. 

“Your penalty,” Ozai growls, “will be far steeper.” 

In a split second, the heat is sucked out of the room and lightning flashes, sharp and white and it cuts more than burns, stabs more than explodes. Sokka’s soulmate is pushed back several feet, taking the full force of the lighting, holding it in his chest. He can’t breathe, no, now his breath is pure energy, pure fire, and it’s burning him up. It’s a fire his soulmate is ready to hold in his body, and then he stabs his hand out, fingers snapping like a gun going off.

Sokka doesn’t quite realize what’s happened until he smells the smoke rising from his soulmate’s skin and feels all the energy sizzling out. Ozai slams into the wall behind him, his head cracking against it with a sickening sound that only adds to the last bits of electricity flickering at his soulmate’s fingers. 

His soulmate stands there for a moment, watching as Ozai lifts his head and opens his mouth to scream. A flag behind him falls, crumpling to the ground, and the dream goes black. 

IX. 

Sokka doesn’t think he’s ever appreciated enough just how brave Zuko is. 

He’s angry, and prideful, and calculating, and awkward, and powerful, and all of that comes together in skin and bone and a heart that’s faced its worst fears head on. Zuko met Ozai during the eclipse, but he stayed until after it was over, and he faced his father, and he didn’t flinch. 

It’s strange-- half of Sokka wants nothing more than to protect Zuko, keep him in some soft place where fire can never reach, but the other half of him wants to hold fire in his hands and know that Zuko wouldn’t let him burn. 

X. 

Sokka wakes up cold. It’s a boiling Fire Nation summer, the kind that leaves blisters on your skin and sweat in your palms, but Sokka is shivering when he wakes up. He pulls the sheets up to his neck, curling up in a ball, but this room isn’t prepared to conserve heat. 

He could stay there, clutching the silk sheets and hoping he’ll warm up eventually. He could. That would probably be the smart thing to do. 

But on the other hand, Sokka is pretty sure he’s over his fear of fire, and he’s beginning to miss burning. 

XI. 

Zuko’s room is at the other end of the palace. Sokka’s leg is completely healed, and so he runs. 

XII. 

There are guards at Zuko’s bedroom door, which Sokka maybe should have expected, because Zuko’s only barely been crowned Fire Lord and there are too many people who would rather see him dead, but all the same, Sokka did not account for this. 

He stands at the door, completely out of breath, barefoot and in pajamas, his hair probably a disaster, and he just asks. He asks to be let in. The guards just stare at him. 

“I’ll fight you,” Sokka offers. “If I win, will you let me in?” 

They say no. That’s fair. 

XIII. 

It might be a hundred degrees out, but Sokka is still shivering, and he knows what he wants. He’s the plan guy. He backs away from Zuko’s door and runs out of the palace. The guards at the doors must also think he’s crazy, but Sokka has left all dignity behind already, and so there’s not much left to lose. 

The Fire Lord usually has specific chambers, except Zuko said he couldn’t sleep in the same place Ozai did only a week prior, so he chose a new room. His new room looks out into the gardens, and Sokka knows that when he can’t sleep, he’ll hover at the window and watch the moon flowers open up as the dark of the night rolls over the courtyards. Even if he’s not sitting there tonight, he keeps his curtains open to the moonlight, and Sokka is almost there. 

XIV. 

He’s breathing hard by the time he’s run around to the other side of the palace to reach Zuko’s window. He stands there, staring into the dark room, not quite sure where he’s going next. Zuko must be asleep, because there’s no light and no sign of movement, but the guards were there, so Zuko had to be inside. 

Sokka catches his breath after a moment before making a decision. He’s beginning to warm up, working up a sweat from running around barefoot in a summer as dry as this one. There’s gravel lining the gap between sidewalk and grass, and Sokka grabs a handful of the biggest stones. 

He takes a deep breath and he finds himself grinning, then laughing, full bodied laughing, a joy he hasn’t felt in ages running through his veins. He’s gasping between laughs, throwing his head back to the sky, eyes squeezed shut. He dreamt of Zuko standing up to Ozai and making himself anew, holding in that lightning and then bursting with it, and Sokka is absolutely electrified. 

XV. 

Sokka throws a rock at the window. 

Then another one. 

And another. 

And another. 

And--

XVI. 

Zuko stands there, completely bewildered. He rubs at his eyes, as if trying to figure out if he’s awake or not. But Sokka is really there, standing outside of his window, grinning, hands shaking. He dropped all of the gravel, but the smaller pieces stick in the creases of his palms as he waves. 

Zuko opens the window. It’s one of the close-to-floor length windows, and Sokka can see all of Zuko, sleep-tossed and tired and beautiful. 

“Sokka?” Zuko calls out, frowning. “What’s wrong?” 

Sokka grins, eyes bright in the darkness. “Absolutely nothing, Zuko.” 

Zuko raises an eyebrow. “You woke me up at 3:00AM, Sokka, so there better be something.” 

“Yeah,” Sokka finally says, breathless. “Yeah, there is something.” 

XVII. 

Sokka blanks. He immediately forgets everything he was going to say. It was important. He was going to say something important and Zuko had to hear it now. But Zuko is standing there with his hair spiked in every which way, his eyes scrunched up to see better in the dark, and Sokka just forgets everything. 

So they stay there for a moment.

A breeze runs through the courtyard, whispering through the plants and leaving footprints in the pond, and it wakes Sokka up from this dream. He’s warmer and no longer shivering like it’s a South Pole winter and he can feel every muscle in his body, every vein, everything in him calling out to Zuko. 

XVIII. 

“You told me to tell you,” Sokka says, swallowing. “When the war was over.” 

Zuko inhales sharply, and Sokka can almost see the gears turning in Zuko’s head, the memory coming back. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but he stops again, just staring at Sokka with wide eyes. 

“You don’t have to listen,” Sokka continues, “if you don’t want to. But the war is over and everything is different, but I-- nothing is different at all, you know? I-- I dream, Zuko. I dream of you and I wake up _wanting,_ and maybe it’s 3am and I don’t know what I’m saying but I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m with you. It’s always been you in my dreams and it’s you when I’m awake, too. I don’t know if you feel that same, but I-- I can promise, Zuko, I can promise I’ll love you with everything. My soul and my heart and-- I can talk all night, _please_ say something.” 

Sokka stops, and he doesn’t at all know what he just said, he just knows that Zuko is staring at him like a moth frozen just before it slips into fire. He just knows that Zuko is biting his lip and there’s something in his eyes that runs brighter than flame. He just knows that he’s practically vibrating despite the stillness between them, and then he knows that the stillness is broken. 

XIX. 

Zuko is climbing out of the window. His silk robes get stuck on the latch and Zuko tears them free without stopping. He stumbles as he climbs over the wall, landing hard on the pile of gravel Sokka threw at the window. He winces as he lands, but before he can slip, Sokka is there with a hand on his arm, steadying him. 

Zuko looks over, meeting Sokka’s eyes. Sokka is about to fall to pieces from holding his breath this long, he’s about to collapse, but then Zuko smiles and maybe that’s what saves him. 

“Sokka,” Zuko murmurs, barely a breath. “Tell me you love me again.”

Sokka clutches his arm tightly, and Zuko goes easily when Sokka pulls him closer. Slowly, just barely moving at all, Zuko slips his arms around Sokka’s waist, gentle and unsure, but there. 

“I love you,” Sokka says. There should never have been a doubt. 

Zuko closes his eyes, lips parted as if he’s trying to swallow the sound and keep it close to his heart. When he opens his eyes, he whispers, “I love you too.” 

They’re both burning. 

XX. 

Sokka only realizes he’s still clutching Zuko’s arm when he tries to move again. At first, he thinks Zuko is trying to move away, and he’s already missing the warmth, but he doesn’t. Zuko just moves his hands to Sokka’s arms, to his shoulders, to his neck, to his jaw, to cupping his face and Sokka fits so perfectly there, he can’t help but ask, “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Zuko breathes, and then he’s leaning over, and Sokka closes his eyes and melts into him.

XXI. 

Their first kiss is gentle, both of them unsure, only teenagers and falling in love faster than they know how to touch. They kiss and it sends something warm rushing through Sokka’s veins, better than any sun and any fire. 

Zuko is the one who pulls away first, and Sokka prays desperately he didn’t do anything wrong because he’s just so new at this and he wants this to last, but Zuko is grinning. Sokka has a list of Zuko’s rare smiles hidden in his heart, and this one is his favorite so far. 

“You’re pretty when you smile,” Sokka blurts out, breaking the silence. 

Instead of tensing up like he usually does, Zuko seems to come undone. He sighs contentedly, gaze darting between Sokka’s eyes and his mouth and his eyes again. “You’re not so bad yourself, you know. Pretty handsome.” 

“I know,” Sokka tells him, but his stomach is twisting because no one’s ever said it like that before, like they mean it, and he never wants to let go of this feeling. “Kiss me again.” 

XXII. 

Their second kiss is sweet, aching. They’re finally touching and Sokka still wants more. He leans into the kiss, moving his hands around Zuko’s waist to pull him closer until they’re fully pressed together. Zuko is everywhere-- his arms looped around Sokka’s neck, one hand in his hair, his lips on Sokka’s lips, his knee between Sokka’s legs, and Sokka can’t get enough of it. 

XXIII. 

They climb back through the window and fall asleep in Zuko’s bed. It’s a peaceful sleep, even if dreamless. Sokka isn’t sure if the soulbond will ever fully repair itself, or if he’ll just have the scattered dreams he’s been having the past few months, but he’s confident that he won’t wake up bleeding again. 

When Sokka gets up, Zuko is already awake. He’s sitting at the desk, looking through an intimidating pile of papers that Sokka doesn’t at all want to think about right now. 

“Hey,” Sokka says, voice hoarse with sleep. 

Zuko turns, and he’s wearing that smile from last night, the one Sokka is convinced only he’s seen, and Sokka’s stomach jumps and twists all over again. 

“Morning,” Zuko says, getting up from the desk and climbing back into the bed. “I was wondering when you’d get up.” 

Sokka smiles as Zuko lies down on his stomach next to him. “I had an eventful night. Figured I deserve to sleep in.” 

“Figures.” Zuko pushes a strand of hair out of Sokka’s face and sits up on his knees. “I was thinking…” 

He trails off, going silent for a moment as if he expects Sokka to finish his sentence. Sokka nods, raising his eyebrows and waiting. 

Zuko swallows, tugging at the hem of his shirt. “If you wanted to go down to the city. With me. Sometime today, or, you know, whenever.” 

Sokka grinned at him, his smile half made with sleep and half with the fire burning where Zuko had touched his cheek. “Fire Lord Zuko, are you asking me on a date?” 

“Only if you say yes.” 

“Well,” Sokka tells him, sitting up. “I’m only saying yes if it's a date.” 

Zuko rolled his eyes but leaned forward, just close enough for Sokka to reach over and kiss him. “Then yes, it's a date.” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

“I hate you,” Zuko says, but there’s no actual hurt there, so Sokka reaches over to kiss him and he thinks he’s forgiven pretty quickly. 

XXIV. 

It’s not until a few days later, once kissing Zuko and going on dates with Zuko and just being with Zuko in general have become some of Sokka’s favorite pastimes, that Zuko tells him about the dreams. 

“They were beautiful,” Zuko says. He whispers it into the darkness of his room, where they lie together until they fall asleep when the sun rises. “All that ice and the ocean and the ships and all that open space to be free in. I think I looked forward to sleeping and seeing that more than I looked forward to anything I was supposed to do while awake.” 

Sokka smiles. “I’m glad you got all of the good memories.” 

Zuko swallows, holding his breath for a second too long. “I’m sorry you didn’t.” 

“Nah,” Sokka says, pressing a kiss to his cheek, listening to Zuko relax a little bit more. “It’s okay. I got you in the end, so I don’t see the problem.”


	6. sunset

I. 

Sokka and Zuko get to Ba Sing Se first, though they’re running a day late and the entire group is supposed to have been here by now. While they wait, Sokka and Zuko explore the city, trying new foods and buying knick knacks that no one needs, pretending that they’re just teenagers on a date. They have fun making up aliases when people tell Zuko he looks just like the new Fire Lord. They’re the worst liars, but they make themselves laugh.

In the little inn they stay at, Sokka dreams of Zuko in a tea shop taking drink orders and he wakes up warm and content. He doesn’t know what Zuko is dreaming of, but he hopes it’s something just as nice. 

II. 

The day the rest of the group arrives, Sokka and Zuko sleep in. They don’t dream, but they’re pressed together while they sleep. 

III. 

They hold hands whenever they can. Zuko still runs warm when they touch, like the fire in his heart flares up when he’s reminded Sokka loves him. All those flames, all that joy, it bleeds through his fingertips into Sokka’s bones. He burns and it’s even better in real life than it is in a dream. 

Everytime they touch, Sokka gets the sense that he’s giving a new part of himself to Zuko. The connection may have been broken, but Zuko still gets Sokka’s soul. They learn the best ways to kiss and they share those secret lovers’ smiles and they tell each other embarrassing stories, and that counts for more than something. 

IV. 

Zuko puts his entire heart in Sokka’s hands and tells him to be kind. 

Sokka holds it gingerly, places it somewhere safe in his ribcage, and swears to be someone kinder than anyone Zuko has had before. The world didn’t end and so now Sokka gets to love Zuko better than the universe ever did. 

Sokka puts his entire heart in Zuko’s hands and asks him to be gentle. 

He’s been burnt before, but Zuko takes his heart with controlled and practiced hands and places it in the cool spot of his mind where all beautiful things go. The world didn’t end and so now Zuko gets to warm his love without burning him down.

V. 

It’s that hour of the night when the sky is turning darker and the moon might start rising any moment now. Morning must be years away. For now, they have all the time in the world. 

They talk until their throats are sore and they kiss until they’re bruised and they laugh until it hurts. Maybe, just maybe, the spirits were right about everything they did. Sokka has loved Zuko and lost him and loved him and lost him again, but when night rolls around with its thousand stars and its dreamless sleep, Sokka thinks that if a broken heart is what it took to be here, all of the pain was worth it. 

Eventually, when the night has truly fallen over the Fire Nation palace, Zuko lays him down to rest. He presses his lips to Sokka’s wrist, lining the scarred soulmark with a kiss for every dream they never had. His lips are wet and cold, and send a tender, aching, honest fire over Sokka’s skin. Zuko whispers an “I love you” into the burn of a broken heart, and Sokka thinks the soulmark might be healing. 

“Hey, Zuko,” Sokka murmurs, eyes half shut, voice rough with exhaustion. 

Zuko is resting his head against Sokka’s chest, more than half asleep. “Yes, my love?” 

“I think you’re a dream come true,” Sokka says, wondering if he could make a poem out of the way Zuko sighs contentedly. “I love you, you know.” 

They close their eyes, unbothered by dreams, weightless as they fall asleep together. When Sokka wakes, the soulmark is still a bloody red, but his arm is tight around Zuko, skin to skin and heart to heart, and that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhh that's the end!! i want to thank you all so, so, so much for reading this-- your comments and kudos mean the absolute world to me. you've shown so much kindness and been so supportive of this rollercoaster of a fic, and i cannot be more appreciative. i hope you all enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it. many thanks and much love to all of you♡♡


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